Snow Day!

It’s a snow day!  I am a teacher and I LOVE snow days!  It’s like a bonus day. It’s time for me, with my kids.  It’s getting something checked off my never ending To-Do list that I sure hadn’t planned to get done.  It’s playing a loud game of Clue with my kids, or just watching a couple of episodes of Friends on Netflix.  Some people seem to want to squash my enthusiasm for snow days by saying, “You won’t be this happy in May, when we have to make up the day.”  But, I DON’T CARE! I plan to work most all the days in May anyway! Who gets a day in the middle of the week to sleep in, wear pj’s until noon, and do WHATEVER??  Teachers. Teachers do. And I, for one, will never complain about making up a day when it is such a gift to me.

But I seriously digress.  Because of this awesome gift of time, I was able to spend a little time out in my high tunnel!  For the first time, we are growing overwinter veggies in our “newish” high tunnel. We put up the tunnel in June of 2017, didn’t plant a seed until March of 2018.  Last summer we had a huge crop of tomatoes, and the other stuff was more of a learning experience. LOL. But in December, we cleaned up, pulled old tomato plants, made a couple of very large compost piles inside the tunnel and planted seeds. This has been a bit of a harsh winter for us here in mid-Missouri. We had lots of snow in November, and quite a snow in early January that left almost a foot of snow on the ground. And ice, today we have ice. But not inside the tunnel. In there, it seems at least 20 degrees warmer than it is outside, and my babies: spinach, kale, radishes, and bibb lettuce are growing quite nicely!  It smells so earthy in there. I swear it’s a natural endorphin kick just walking in the door.

Bibb lettuce in the tunnel on 1/23/19

I’m such a newbie at this!  I have noticed that the radishes are taking much longer to grow to harvest size.  Everything, really is slower to grow than in the spring. I was hoping to have some by now, but they are still pretty small.  I’m going to chalk that up to very little actual sunlight days, as most days in December and January are cloud-covered and gray.  But they are still growing, and not a bit of intolerance to the intense cold we’ve had here these past weeks. I’m calling that a WIN.  

I hope to harvest in the next couple of weeks.  The spinach will probably be first. If you want to be contacted when we are ready to start selling, just shoot me an email, or text, or whatever, and I’ll add you to my list.  Happy snow day, y’all!