Tomatoes

these are the tomatoes my papa brouqht from Rhode island. The tomato plants don't have any flowers yet.

these are the tomatoes my papa brouqht from Rhode island. The tomato plants don't have any flowers yet.

This is my papa's tomato plants that he will be planting.
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It really looks like the middle of April around rather than the middle of March right now. It has been so warm that almost all the snow is gone where we are now. I keep thinking we are going to get one more big snowfall, but I woke up the other morning to the sound of rain on the tin roof, so maybe we are done with winter.
As you can see, Shelby likes the lack of snow. She was born in late fall, so this is her first go around with bare ground. Lots of new smells!

The first seedlings are planted. More flowers this year, to sell as seedlings. But as in years past, started in the basement, under lights, to postpone as long as possible heating the greenhouses.

Wavy and Henry (and Shelby) helping clean out one of the greenhouses to get it ready for tomatoes. Wavy's still in her pajamas at like 3:00 (!!) because it was one of the last days of school vacation.

The old cherry (tomato) house waiting to be cleared out and cleaned up. Rotten tomatoes and flies, oh my!

One of the lower greenhouses that's been "turned" and planted to crops for fall. Turned means that we've pulled out the tomatoes, cleaned up the mess, put down compost, and replanted. It's a challenge to find the right balance between harvesting every last tomato and getting them out in time to get the fall crops growing before we completely lose the daylight the fall crops need to get growing. This is dandelion greens, and we've also planted scallions, baby bok choy, salad turnips and a lot of spinach.

The brussel sprouts are thriving this year,

Peter loosens them with the disc on the tractor. Then we loosen them from the other side with a fork.

Then its like an Easter egg hunt in the soil. All the green and damaged ones get left in the field.
In the 30 minutes between the first photo, and the second, the early morning fog had lifted and the sun was shining warm.

We had a hard frost last night, and another one expected tonight. But even before that frost, we've been pulling the tomatoes out of the greenhouses to plant them to fall greens.

Wavy and Henry with the mammoth sunflower they planted in their jungle garden.
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Velvet Queen sunflower.

Our stand at Danville market. From left: asters, carrots, green beans, beets, broccoli, cucumbers, cabbage, ruffled kale, tuscan kale, sweet onions, cauliflower, turnips, tomatoes!, chard, spinach, zucchini, yukon gold potatoes, red potatoes, basil, black eyed susans. The bounty!