Spring is finally here and we are ever so thankful to see green grass appearing in place of the snow! This week we raced the coming wind and rainstorms to cover and complete the 3rd hoop house we now have up. The weather has to be just right to pull and secure a large piece of greenhouse plastic without the wind taking it away. We had a narrow window of opportunity Wednesday morning to get the job done, and secured it just in time before the wind started picking up. With the exception of a little left to do on one end wall, the hoop house is ready for the prep work on the inside in order to house all our seedlings patiently awaiting transplanting. In this hoop house we will primarily grow cucumbers that will be going to Town and Country and used in our CSA. We have been working on a lot of planning and it is so nice to finally get out and begin implementing those plans!
Lots of spring cleanup has been underway: pruning raspberries, preparing the soil for planting, cleaning up the asparagus and rhubarb plots and all the other preparations for this season. We are so grateful for the help we had this week from Russel. He helped on the hoop house as well as with a lot of raspberry pruning. It is exciting to see the rhubarb coming up so fast, new raspberry plants pushing themselves out of the ground, and tiny buds appearing on the honeyberry (haskap) plants. The garlic is shooting up as well and before we know it the strawberries will be flowering! It is so remarkable to see the life that “springs” out of our cold, snowy Montana winters.