I know we are in the midst of summer but on the farm we are in fall mode. A truck load of transplants arrived from the nursery on Monday morning. These were ordered back in early January. I send a spreadsheet to Mike at Headstart nursery with a list of all the plants we need for the year. I make sure all the required seed is sent directly to him from our two main seed suppliers White Seed in Salinas and Johnny’s Seeds in Maine. 

We put all the trays of plants into our shade house, and will not start planting until Thursday. We like there to be no wind and not so hot when we plant. We irrigate them as soon as the transplanting machine moves out of the way. The next day we go back into the field and set up shade cloth to reduce the stress on the plants. After ten days it will be time to cultivate the weeds that grow so we will remove the shade then and move it into other newly planted crops. This is extra work but it can make a difference between the young plants surviving or not at this time of the year.