Hoping for a Dry May
Farm News
Celebrating Ella Fitzgerald’s 100th Birthday – she sang the blues as if she lived in the Northwest in this record-breaking, wet year. Her version of “Stormy Weather” (“don’t know why there’s no sun up in the sky…”) is spot on for where our fields are today – wet, saturated and not fully ready for planting.
Luckily, we have uneven ground, meaning some spots are much higher than others, which we have made the most of in the last few weeks. Preparing beds and transplanting are high priority as we were successful in getting our first full veggie flush from the greenhouse into the drier fields.
This may sound easy, but for all of you who may work outside or looked out the window in these last few weeks, know that placing transplants in between rain, hail and thunder squalls is like trying to find the needle in the haystack. Seattle like many Pacific Northwest areas soaked up record-breaking amounts of rainfall this “water year” which runs from October 2016 through September 2017.
According to The Seattle Times, the average year-to-date precipitation in Seattle on April 26th is 30.5 inches. This year as of April 26, 2017, the precipitation is already at 46.19 inches, a whopping 151.4% above normal rate! What does this mean for the farmer already in the flood plain area of Carnation? Be patient and hope May looks better than April!
The temperatures have been cooler than normal as well not allowing for the ground to really warm up and dry out. We are thankful for our greenhouses and their ability to cultivate when Mother Nature has a different plan. A silver lining for us throughout all of this rain has been the longest running planting of green kale. We planted in August 2016, and it has provided us with amazingly sweet and wonderful greens all the way up until this last week of April. It has been marvelous to see the new plantings, green and tender, next to the older fully matured kale ready to be done and composted. They complimented each other new and young old and beautiful!
Thank you in making a difference! Don’t forget to find us on Instagram (@fullcirclefarms).
– Wendy
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