The Start of Spring at the Farm

           

Hi Everyone, 

The farm is an exciting place to be this week! As a berry farmer, I think of the start of spring as being when our perennial berry plants start to emerge. Either they start to emerge from the soil, such as raspberry and strawberry plants (shown in the first two pictures above), or their buds start to expand and open like with blueberries and aronia berries (shown in the third and fourth pictures above). And this is the week for all of that! For me, it's a fun time to be at the farm, a time of new possibilities, and lots of youthful energy. Every day the plants look so different as the new shoots rapidly grow or the buds expand. The fields feel like they are popping with life. And it's the start of the march towards flowers and eventually fruit!

The question I've been getting most often the last couple weeks is how will the mild winter affect this year's crops? In general for perennial berry plant health a mild winter is great. We don't have winterkill from the cold on our blueberry plants and other fruit bushes such as currants and aronia. And those plants probably had less stress over the course of the winter since the temperatures were so mild. For plants like raspberries and strawberries, with the mild winter I expect them to emerge with lots of vigor and do really well. 

There are some people worried about increased insect challenges because we didn't have the sub zero days during the winter to kill off some of the insects trying to overwinter, but this isn't a huge concern for me honestly. It seems like the Japanese Beetles for instance have been bad regardless of the severity of the winter the last few years, so I'm just preparing for them to be bad again.   

Our big concern as I've mentioned numerous time is spring frost. We'll see how that plays out in late April/early May, but for now things are looking great at the farm and we're enjoying the early spring. 

- Aaron and Molly