Monday, April 11, 2011

High Winds.

I get nervous on days like today. The strong winds make the greenhouses shimmy in alarming ways. At the wind speeds we experienced yesterday and today, none of the houses were in any real danger of being damaged, but I like to keep an eye out. Every so often, Growing for Market will publish the photo of some poor soul’s greenhouse under which the wind swept, then lifted and crushed onto the roof of a nearby barn. These photos give me pause.

Of all the different kinds of weather we work in, I think the most irritating is the wind. Autumn’s cold and wet can be demoralizing, but when the wind flares out of the west, raising whitecaps on Maplewood Lake and scouring everything with the fine silt of the muck fields, stinging your eyes, infiltrating every seam in your clothing, filling your mouth with dust -- that gets old fast.

These winds are drying out the soil nicely, though. This week, our plan is to start planting in the fields, starting with fava beans and peas, and maybe some early salad greens.