Sustainable Farm Journal

Today, I harvested the first greenhouse squash. It was about the size of a regular, yellow squash but was green. The texture was smooth, and the flavor was no different from an open pollinated squash from the garden.

Last night, about 2 inches of rain fell. Today's highs were in the 60s, and tonight will be chilly but well above freezing. The soil is too wet to work in the field or in the raised bed garden.

After several failed attempts to grow microgreens, I have started several new trays today. I have a shelf dedicated to microgreens productions, now. It has an array of lights to help their development.

This week of variety of springtime wildflowers bloomed. There is a beautiful showing of bluebonnets, Indian Paintbrush, and verbena along with false garlic and dandelions.

This week, the greenhouse cucumbers, which are only about a foot and a half tall as they climb up jute strung from the cieling, set fruit.

Today, I noticed that salvia greggi had bloomed. This week, the hackberry trees also budded.

The first row of Israeli melons that I planted before the last rain had shown no signs of germination by today, so I reseeded 3 seeds into each basin. I used the seed I saved from the best melons from last year because I was afraid that the Willhite seed was too old (from 2012). I was almost finished reseeding the basins when I dug one up, just to check the seed. When I did, I found that the seeds had taproots and were indeed germinating.

Today, I saw two hummungbirds feeding from the red Texas honeysuckle in the landscaping. This was the first day of their return.