May is the month of planting. It is a crush. All I can do is hope that I stick to some sort of plan so that I don’t get behind.

This year it started with grapes. Grapes because at the beginning of the month the soils were too wet to do any tractor work and I am able to plant grapes by hand. It wasn’t a large amount of grapes, 50 Somerset, 24 Brianna, and 12 Loise Swenson. Somerset is the only “true” table grape, which is to say seedless.

Then it was onto strawberries. It takes quite a bit of work to get the tractor set up to make my strawberry beds because they are smaller than a normal vegetable bed. Strawberry beds at Firefly Fields are only three and a half feet wide whereas a normal vegetable bed is set at four and a half feet. This matters because I am trying to maximize field space and minimize the amount of weeding I need to do. It also makes a difference for harvesting. It is easier, which is to say time efficient,  to harvest two rows of strawberries that are smaller in width. It is the kind of field tinkering that is fascinating for me and possibly terribly boring for others. I planted just over 5100 strawberries this year, which is about what I do every year. It is a solid week of setting up the beds and putting the pants in the ground. 

Strawberries are the “big push” because they are what I sell the most of and what I spend the most time on. Often people think I just grow strawberries. But I would be bored to tears if I did that. 

After the strawberries I planted filet beans, peas, corn, watermelons, artichoke, tomatillos, broccoli, kale, and brussel sprouts in that order. Yesterday I planted tomatoes, sungolds in the greenhouse (which are my second largest crop by sales) and Japanese black trifele, carbon, valencia, moskvich, and roma outside. 

Today I hope to get the cucumbers in the ground. And then do a little weed control around the hazelnuts I planted last year. Maybe I will even do something off the farm today?