Flashback to 2016: May!

Arlo as permanent guardian watching over the U-Pick fields

Gentler soil management with the "new" chisel plow--it helps keep soil biology intact!

Pattern for the summer starting--lots of wet feet keeping the irrigation going and crops growing!

Farmer self portrait, plowing under the winter cover crops that protected the soil from erosion.

Winter wheat and dandelions--building up the soil for future crops!

Needing rain but only getting rainbows!

High May Day--rich pasture grasses, wind in the windmills, and glorious sunny skies!

End of an era--started off the summer sadly saying good bye to our best farm dog ever...

Onion planters hard at "work"...

First pototo popping out of the ground!

New irrigation task: make sure to remove toads from the lines before you turn the water on!

Scallions thriving despite super dry conditions.

This year's piglets in their electric fence training pen, learning to stay inside!

Inspecting the drip irrigation on the onions. We are torn on using plastic mulch, but in this crazy dry summer, it definitely saved these onions!

This year's weed nemesis: Canadian thistle. Pulling it out one spiky plant at a time!

Opening up a beautiful new field in the far back of the farm--Maine (we name all our fields after states) will be our "main" field for 2017!

Tunnel tomato planting day! We use 10 year reuseable landscape fabric in here to trap in moisture, and increase tomato yields about 10 times over outside plants!

Piggy's first mud wallow! Pigs can't sweat so they rely on us making mud for them to stay nice and cool!

Pollinators buzzing everywhere, especially the hardy bumblebees (who outwork honeybees by miles)!

Irrigation pumps were a-buzzing too this summer, keeping plants alive despite skimpy rainfall!

Wrestling with row covers to protect the plants from pests before the next storm rolls through...

Teenage chickens, you aren't doing the roosting thing right! New hens need a few weeks to learn how to be chickens...

Some days are just disasters--this May we had a dust devil form and destroy about $3000 of row cover in less than 30 seconds...

Seeding an endless array of flats (620 or so this year)! We use the extra few weeks as a jumpstart to keep the veggies ahead of pest, disease, and weeds!

One of this year's new tools--a rolling row marker to save us time planting. We love it!

Can you see the evidence of this visitor? Need to get the henhouse far away from it...

Legions of squash and cucumbers, about 1 week out from being ready to transplant!

More of our favorite toady farm friends. This guy got relocated into the high tunnel, where he hopefully feasted on slugs!

This year's staff capital improvement favorite--the waterwheel. It saves employee knees and backs and time, as well as being mega-fun to use!

More farm friends--we love building habitat and providing spaces for all the wild things, some of which move a bit slower than others...

May on the farm in one image--baby plants, pest control row covers (and their hundreds of rock bag weights), weeding and more weeding, and a little bit of slug control...