Another Thaw as Solar Winter Nears End

I guess I'm still reeling from the 2+ weeks of extremely frigid weather because now when I look at the 10-day forecast and 5 of those days are supposed to be 50 degrees or above a part of me feels incredulous, a sense of disbelief. We're not even quite halfway through astronomical winter but that kind of forecast is more like March than January. That said, we're pretty close to rapidly increasing daylight and are 10 days away from 10 hours of daylight. We're also about out of our hemisphere's solar winter, the quarter of the year with the least amount of daylight. Because of the heat lag though we still have cold weather ahead (probably). I did read that by mid-February temperatures are supposed to be average or slightly below, which still sounds warm to me after the cold we've already experienced.

While it's warm for the next few days we'll remove the inner covers from our tunnels and open doors so air can circulate better. On warm days this time of year air exchange in the tunnels is important to quell the spread of any disease. This will also give us a chance to assess all of the greens and plan for the next few weeks of harvest, as well as get an idea of any sustained damage from the previous cold spell.

We've made great progress on our 2018 Crop Plan and are beginning to put the pieces of the crop rotation puzzle together for this season. Bed feet was calculated for each crop/family, 2015-2017 use is taken into account, cover crop species sown in summer/fall 2017 are considered, soil test results are analyzed, drainage is appreciated, and thus plans are made, 2018 farmscape takes form.