Wintering in the field

We are in the depth of winter in the field, and many of the beds are laid to rest under a blanket of cover crop to see them through the dark and cold of the coming months. Garlic is planted (twice as much as last year) and the first glimmers are green are starting to emerge from the bulbs.  At home I am sitting down to do my crop planning for the year, the building block of the harvests to come.  It's a lot of coffee, spreadsheets, and excel equations but it's a lot of dreaming, imagining, and hoping too. 

I am revamping my seed starting set up this year, converting my walk in fridge into a makeshift germination chamber to hopefully increase my early season transplant success.  It's an insulated space so I will outfit it with a heater, shelves, and grow lights to give the first few months of seeds the best possible start I can.  In just a few more weeks the first seeds of the season will get there start here: leeks, broccoli, sprouting cauliflower, kale, chard, celery, herbs, fennel, lettuce, radicchio, scallions.