This week: Fickle weather...blessing or curse?

This week was a perfect example of the wacky weather we've been having this Winter: from a low near 15 degrees to a high near 70 within a couple days! We heard a weatherperson on TV blame these warm Winter temperatures on La Nina, saying we should expect a mild temperatures all the way through to Spring. While the farmer side of us would be perfectly fine not having to deal with snow, our inner children may miss it a bit if it doesn't make an appearance. Ground and soil temperatures are staying high as well, meaning preparation for Spring planting will be easy and early. A lot of this prep would normally be done in the Fall before temperatures drop, but we've been playing catchup for a while now, so we welcome this mild Winter graciously.

Since we are still learning about winter crop production, we did experience a bit of loss during the colder nights this week. We had expected this would happen, since no matter how much you can learn before-hand, nothing will beat experience. Our main issue this particular round would seem to be our use of floating row covers (a light cloth layer of protection for plants) within the high tunnels. Some literature we have seen suggested simply using the plant canopy as support, since these covers are so light. We believe this was too much stress for some of the plants as they seemed to have dead tissue where the cloth was touching the plants. It would have been wiser to construct mini-tunnels within the tunnel for the covers, keeping them raised off of the plants but still offering the same protection. This will go on the to-do list this week.

A rather predictable issue with the Winter crops was our poor choice of frost-hardy plants. Not all of the breeds we chose have frost tolerance, and even with two layers of protection, they just can't handle a night in the teens. I discuss how we prepare for cold weather more in depth in the first Questionand Answer post.

Staying sane as a new farmer requires a mind-set of acceptance. It wouldn't make sense for us to get upset over these mistakes. They've happened whether they were avoidable or not, and all we can do is learn from them moving forward. We dove into winter production knowing it was an experiment and what we're learning is as valuable as what we produce. The damage wasn't total, though it wasn't minimal, and we're not out of the winter produce game yet. We expect a bounce-back of everything affected.

Ranell and Ryan cleaning processed chickens.
Questions on this process?  Ask us!

We were blessed with a visit from the fourth Bridges this week, Ryan (as if it weren't confusing enough that there are three “Bridges” active on Two Bridges Farm). He is a lieutenant (O-3) in the US Navy (we're very proud of him) and is being re-stationed from San Diego to Washington DC. Him and his wife Erin stopped by on their way to DC while we were processing our weekly batch of chickens, so we had them throw some gloves on and put them to work! He is always urging us to grow hops, since his personal dream is to one day open a brewery. We might play with the idea. Home brewing is a rapidly growing hobby, especially here in North Carolina, and there might be a market for some locally grown hops. It was nice to show him around the farm, and as usual, he was gone as quickly as he appeared.

In the coming week, we're excitedly expecting a visit from an Animal Welfare Approved inspector. Animal welfare is something we care deeply about, and we hope that organizations like Animal Welfare Approved will help us maintain transparency for customers who may not have the chance to visit the farm and see for themselves how we treat our livestock. Even if we obtain the Animal Welfare Approved label, we will still invite and encourage all of our customers to visit the farm and get as involved with the food production process as they are comfortable.

Other than that, things are all normal and well on Two Bridges Farm. We're still expecting kids any time soon from the goats, the egg production is starting to pick up a bit, and updates to our digital face continue.  Crop preparation for the Spring and Summer growing seasons is moving smoothly and I nervously started seed for our early peppers and tomatoes this week.  This makes me nervous because this puts us at a transplanting time-frame around the beginning of March, after which we could still experience a hard freeze which could kill off the little seedlings, even under extra protection inside of the high tunnels.  While there is a risk, there's also a reward.  Early tomatoes and peppers will be a treat at the market!  We're keeping our fingers crossed hoping this weather will maintain for the next couple of months, but we keep in the forefront of our minds that Mother Nature is our boss, and she can make some unpredictable choices.