Spring has arrived.... properly this time.

With the advent of some sun, we can now actually believe that spring has arrived in reality and not just in theory. The first day of real sunshine meant some serious spring cleaning of both the sunroom and the greenhouse, so both have been put to good use already:

Bertie would actually much rather be out chasing the chickens...

The arrival of some sun has meant we can start using the greenhouse:

Hot bed number 2

 

Hotbed covered at night as its been dropping to -6 degrees C

 

I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed the sun, but now that the bears are out of hibernation, the deer are moving about and the sun is shining I actually feel like I’m also ready for the new season.

The chickens are happy too....

 

This season we're planning to ‘work smarter, not harder’.  We’ve been putting that into practice with the maple syrup processing:  using a cleaned out backpack fertiliser sprayer to collect and haul the sap rather than lugging buckets around – much easier; waiting till the morning to collect the sap so that I can throw out the outer layer of ice which has a much lower sugar content – saving time and wood during the boiling process; and using the stove in the sunroom (with both doors open for ventilation) so that we're not only boiling sap but heating an area we can also use for seeding.

 

Time to head off now to make hay while the sun shines....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our indoor seed bed

Since we don't have a heated greenhouse, at this time of year when the weather is still chilly and very temperamental, we start all our seedlings inside (the house!).

Our initial seed bed is literally a bed with mattress removed and replaced with a layer of plastic,  insulating bubble wrap, sand and our heating cable/mat.

This bed holds only about 9 seed trays but that is still 2,700 seedlings at one time (over 30,000 flowers)....When it starts getting a little warmer, we also make a similar seed bed outside in the propagation greenhouse..

Some of the first flower seedlings are ready for the next stage; transplanting into larger soil-blocks. This is when we really start using a lot of space as each of the 300 mini-blocks in the initial trays is transplanted into trays of just 36 larger soil-blocks... so 1 tray turns into 8.....

Best get making those soil-blocks.

Tapping time...delicious!

The skies are blue, the sap has been running, so Jamie has started his annual workout (ie. hauling buckets of sap from the bottom field up to the house for boiling). The stove is cranked up and fingers crossed we will have some delicious syrup soon.

 

Just testing....

stove cranked up

slowly boiling down!!