Confounding March…The last days’ rainfall has erased all traces of snow remaining in the fields. Everything is laid bare, exposed to nature’s vagaries and the bitter cold which continues, despite a fast-approaching spring (on our calendar page, if nowhere else). Temperatures dropped below -20⁰C last weekend and the forecast is for more of the same in coming days. Yours truly, i.e. your vegetable farmer, hates these yo-yo weather fluctuations, and wonders how his garlic will fare, so abruptly deprived of its protective snow cover…There is nothing to be done, save hoping that the meteorologists are mistaken in their predictions.
That said, bare fields are an open invitation – and so it is that yesterday I walked them, checking on our perennial plantings and taking a stroll through our small orchard. Fortunately, everything plant-like remains stubbornly dormant, biding its time and unimpressed by the fleeting warm spells. We will soon begin spring cleaning and pruning, remedying the winter’s wind damage and removing bothersome suckers. Then we’ll take our shears to the blueberry patch and our black currant bed. Two weeks of busy-ness before the season’s work begins in earnest and we open the greenhouse…
