Category: Task lists

Fall is a transitional time, meant to chase us out of the fields and slow down the constant intensity of planting, harvest, rotation, and irrigation. The rains return, and when we find a moment between pulling winter squash, corn and dry beans from the field, we forage for the fruits of our lush, mycorrhizal soils. Chanterelles, King Boletes, Lobster mushrooms run rampant this time of year. Now is the last window to get in cover crops, and if we miss it, to mulch any bare soil. 

October

Harvesting

• Annuals: Chicory, radicchio, beets, carrots, turnips, napa cabbage, winter squash, collards, kale, spigarello, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, kohlrabi, mustard greens, lettuce, chard, spinach, pak choi, celery, celeriac, leeks, scallions, potatoes, sunchokes, salsify, scorzonera, burdock root
• The last of cucumbers, melons, eggplants, paste tomatoes, hot peppers – get them in before our first frost!
• Perennials: Apples, figs, persimmon, quince, pears
• Forage: Chanterelles

Storage

• Store garlic below 40F or above 56F, never between 40 and 50F.
• Harvest and cure winter squash: Acorn (pepo) types (stem still green, ground spot “earthy” or orange), store 1-4 months; Maximas (stem 75% corky) store 3-5 months; Moschatas (peanut colored skin, no mottling or streaks) store 4-8 months, or more. Low humidity and high temperature (60 degrees, or above). Leave on live vines as long as possible, avoiding frost on fruits. Cut leaving long stem using pruners; handle gently. (sourced from Pam Dawling’s Complete Twin Oaks Garden Task List)

Planting

• Alliums: Garlic, Onions, Shallots
• Overwintering Fava beans
• Overwintering grains: Barley, Rye, Spelt, Triticale, Wheat
• Flower bulbs
• Get your cover crops in by early October

Infrastructure

• Pull drip tape out of field and store
• Install and/or secure season extension structures, greenhouses, low tunnels, cloches
• Put row cover out over cold sensitive crops
• Pull trellises out of field and store
• Erect low tunnels out of electrical conduit hoops and 4-6mm polyfilm and/or 9mm wire hoops and row cover for cold protection

Bed Prep

• Cut all warm-season crops down to soil level and leave the root buried to decompose, releasing enzymes to the soil’s microbial community.
• Mulch bare soil with compost, leaves, straw, fermented alfalfa hay, etc.
• Weed, fertilize and mulch berries and perennials.
• If you practice tarping/occulation, lay your plastic mulch and sandbag every four feet.

Soil health

• Liming–and the application of other rock flours, like gypsum–can be done at this point, to allow for these slow-release amendments to incorporate into the soil.
• Take a nitrate test at the end of harvest, but before winter rains, to calibrate next year’s nitrogen application. This is the best way to know if you are overapplying nitrogen.

Crop Planning

• Get soil tests done before soil gets too wet.
• Sign up for seed catalog delivery – a lot of seed companies have their inventory online, but how nostalgic is it to cozy up with your favorite seed catalogs?
• Gather harvest totals from the previous season and plug in to your planting calculations for next year. Josh Volk is a great resource for record keeping and developing an effective crop plan – check out this article he wrote for Growing For Market. He has some other useful ones on the Q&A section of his website joshvolk.com.

Animals

• Muck stalls at least once a week during rainy months

November

Harvesting

• Annuals: Chicory, raddichio, beets, carrots, turnips, napa cabbage, winter squash, collards, kale, spigarello, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, kohlrabi, mustard greens, lettuce, chard, spinach, pak choi, celeriac, leeks, scallions, scorzonera, salsify, burdock root, sunchoke, pull all potatoes out before rains set in
• Perennial herbs

Planting

• If you haven’t yet plant your alliums: Garlic, Onions, Shallots

Infrastructure

• Check low tunnels, high tunnels and greenhouses for adequate circulation
• Make sure ends of plastic and row cover are adequately weighed down by sand bags, soil, etc.
• Turn off all water and irrigation sources at risk of freezing
• Gather old trellising, t-posts, irrigation, and rowcover.

Winter growing

• Are your greenhouses being fully utilized? Take the time to plan for next year’s overwintering crops. Vacant greenhouses can have their film removed, so that soluble salt buildup is leached by winter rains.
• Consider applying an extra layer of rowcover to crops inside your greenhouse, or a second layer of film and a blower, for extra insulation.

Bed Prep

• Expect our first frost during this month and protect your plants accordingly.
• Mulch garlic
• Spread lime or gypsum as indicated by soil test.
• Mulch bare soil with compost, leaves, straw, fermented alfalfa hay, etc.
• Prune back dead asparagus tops and mulch with leaves or other mulch.
• Weed, fertilize and mulch berries and perennials.

Crop Planning

• Go through seed packets and determine viability. High Mowing Seeds has a great chart to help you figure out which seeds have a few years left.
• Accumulate past year’s harvest totals.

Animals

• Muck stalls at least once a week during rainy months
• Pull feed buckets and water troughs out of fields and sanitize.
• If keeping a water source in the field, use a tank deicer to keep water available.

July

Harvest

• From the field: peas, lettuce, mustard greens, chard, kale, cabbage, beets, carrots, salad turnip, salad radish, fennel, edible flowers, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, strawberries, early potatoes, fresh onions, scallions, asparagus, celery, broccoli, woody herbs
• From the orchard: early blueberries, cherries, raspberries
• For storage: garlic, shallots
• Grains: Most grains are harvested late July through August. “Sample kernels of grain between your teeth for hardness. When the grain begins to crack between your teeth, you know it is close to ready.” – Jack Lazor, author of The Organic Grain Grower.

Perennial Maintenance

• Michael Phillips advises a fourth holistic spray (liquid fish, pure neem oil, effective microbes) aimed at the leaf canopy and developing fruitlets. From his book, The Holistic Orchard, “The fish will help meristem development for return bloom; neem stimulates immune function and hinders moths; microbes are biological reinforcement for the summer ahead.”
• Continue kaolin clay application if faced with curculio.
• Run chickens through to pick through infested early fruit drops or lie dropcloths to prevent larva from getting to soil to pupate.
• Thinning fruit: start with your heaviest-setting varieties within forty days of petal fall. Leave one fruit per cluster, and pick infested fruitlets to dispose with your chickens.
• Pinch off shoots on young trees to correct crow’s foot situations from heading cuts.
• Keep mowing ground covers.
• Place bird netting over cherries and blueberries.
• Hang sticky traps for apple maggot fly.
• Apply thick kaolin slurry with paintbrush for borer protection.

Bed Prep

• Perform a mid-season nitrate test
• Summer cover crops, like buckwheat and sorghum/sudangrass, should be mowed and incorporated just as they begin flowering.

Planting in the Ground

• Most overwintering roots need to be planted during this month: storage radishes, storage turnips, rutabaga, burdock, scorzonera, salsify.
• Overwintering brassica starts need to be planted this month. If starting from seed, start in the greenhouse in early June.

Integrated Pest Management

• Fungal and disease control may involve spraying. Do you have your emulsifiers and sticker-spreaders? Are your sprayers in working order? Are you stocked-up on neem oil and other sprays?

August

Harvest

• From the field: peas, lettuce, mustard greens, chard, kale, cabbage, beets, carrots, salad turnip, salad radish, fennel, edible flowers, strawberries, early potatoes, fresh onions, scallions, asparagus, celery, broccoli, woody herbs, cherry tomatoes, beefsteak and roma tomatoes, summer squash, cucumber, eggplant, sweet pepper, hot pepper
• For storage: storage onions, cured potatoes
• Grains: Most grains are harvested late July through August. “Sample kernels of grain between your teeth for hardness. When the grain begins to crack between your teeth, you know it is close to ready.” – Jack Lazor, author of The Organic Grain Grower.

Perennial Maintenance

• Summer prune watersprouts on especially vigorous apple trees to increase sun penetration and circulation and to improve fruit color.
• Spray for summer moth control. Michael Phillips suggests rotating spinosad and Bt if pure neem oil is not getting the job done.
• Phillips also recommends spraying holistic summer sprays (liquid fish, pure neem oil, effective microbes), as well as horsetail and nettle tea for a silica source. He ideally applies these every ten to fourteen days up until harvest.
• Bicarbonates may help with sooty blotch and flyspeck on light-colored apples in humid areas or situations of low circulation.
• Keep mowing ground cover, keep pathways mowed. This helps to expose early dropped and infested fruit.
• Sow an oat or legume cover crop along the edges of dwarf tree rows.
• Take soil tests every year and then every few years to balance your soil minerals and feed the soil biology.
• Prune out spent canes immediately after harvest to allow more sunlight and circulation, and to initiate fruit buds on maturing primocanes.

Planting in the Ground

• Carrots, chervil, green onions, cress, salad radish, salad turnips, beets, spinach, chard, chicory, endive, escarole, lettuce, mustard greens, shungiku, mache, claytonia.

September

Harvest

• From the field: peas, lettuce, mustard greens, chard, kale, cabbage, beets, carrots, salad turnip, salad radish, fennel, edible flowers, strawberries, early potatoes, fresh onions, scallions, asparagus, celery, broccoli, woody herbs, cherry tomatoes, beefsteak and roma tomatoes, summer squash, cucumber, eggplant, sweet pepper, hot pepper
• From the orchard:

Perennial Maintenance

• Prune stone fruit after harvest.
• Gather apple maggot traps and all other monitoring traps.

April

Harvesting

• Along with March, April is often-times referred to as the Hunger Gap. This is the time in the PNW when our winter stocks of squash and onions have run out, we have harvested the last storage roots from the field, and the greens we seeded in the greenhouse have not put on enough growth to harvest yet.
• Brassica Raab – coming in to fill in the Hunger Gap, raab is a farmer’s and eater’s best friend. For those unfamiliar with this delectably sweet last hurrah from the brassica family, let your fall and overwintering plants grow into the spring. As they enter their last life cycle, they will begin to flower – the apical stem will flower, and once you snap that off and devour it, they will begin flowering at each of the apexes of their apical stem and leaves. Once these shoots set their florets and before they flower, snap them off at the base while they are still succulent. You will be amazed and instantly addicted to their sweet and tender nature. Welcome to Raabtown, USA! You’ll be very happy here.
• Microgreens are always a quick and reliable source of greens through the winter and spring. The shallow open flats are very useful for microgreen production, which we carry in the Concentrates’ showroom, as well as coir and kelp extract.

Perennial Maintenance

• Apply Michael Phillips holistic spray, consisting of pure neem oil, liquid fish, effective microbes, and seaweed extract. Aim at the buds, trunk, and branch structure. From his book The Holistic Orchard, “The fatty oils in the fish and neem fuel microorganism colonization on the leaf surface…Other constituents in the neem oil coat insect eggs tucked into bark crevices and get ingested by larvae feeding directly on the tree, which causes the molting cycle of certain pests to crash.”
• Hang white sticky traps for European apple sawfly.

Infrastructure

Crop Planning

• Summer cover crops: Buckwheat, sorghum-sudan, sudangrass, for added organic matter and weed suppression.

Bed Prep

• Cover crop mowing and incorporation takes place when they first begin flowering. Consider submitting a cover crop analysis to OSU’s Central Analytic Lab. Sampling and lab submission instructions here.
• Amend your fields as you prepare for planting. Consider soil temperature when timing your nitrogen application: remember than the phase of rapid N uptake, which varies by species, is about four weeks from germination; but nitrogen does not mineralize very quickly in cold soils. Give your amendments time to become available, or plan to use highly soluble sources like fish emulsion.
• Spreaders should be calibrated and maintained.

Propagation

• Source/purchase/organize your potting soil(s) and germinating mixes, or their components.
• Gather and inspect your trays, source/purchase as needed.
• Organize your work area and tools–dibblers, seeders, mixing equipment, writing implements, record-keeping paperwork, tray labels, heat mats/lights, wicking irrigation.
• Compost tea can efficiently be applied to starts as you water them. Does your brewer work, and do you have the ingredients on hand? Molasses, worm castings?
• Do you fertigate your seedlings? Gather your fish emulsion, or other soluble nitrogen source.
• Do you provide trace minerals and myco inoculants? Gather your kelp emulsion and mycorrhizal inoculants for a pre-transplant dunk.
• Tomatillo, ground cherry, cucumber, melons, pumpkin, summer squash, winter squash, basil, globe amaranth, tithonia, amaranth

Planting in the Ground

• Carrots, chervil, dill, fennel, leeks, onions, lovage, parsnip, parsley, arugula, broccoli, cress, kohlrabi, radish, turnip, chois, beets, chard, spinach, quinoa, orach, burdock, lettuce, sunchoke, salsify, scorzonera, shungiku, peas, anise hyssop, sorrel, potatoes, cabbage, purslane, calendula, nasturtium, flax, cosmos, zinnia, sunflowers
• Calibrate and maintain your bed marking tools

Animals

• Check all new animals delivered on-farm for overall health and thrift. Hands-on examinations including tracking the weights of new arrivals as they grow can help ensure healthy animals.
• Provide environmental stimuli for new creatures that will be pen raised. A bail of hay to play in, hidden or suspended food treats, large sturdy balls to push and toss, and logs or stumps to climb all keep growing minds of all species active and occupied.
• Clean feed and water dishes as needed to prevent creatures from ingesting waste. A hot water and soap scrub is sufficient to remove debris. If illness is present, consider washing and sanitizing equipment and spaces frequently.
• Check bedding and shelters to ensure clean, dry and draft-free.
• Get market ready! Prepare signs, flyers and other materials for farmers markets or other sales avenues. Make sure product packaging is ready to go and that all coolers and equipment is in clean, ready-to-work order.

May

Harvesting

Perennial Maintenance

• Install or replace mason bee nesting tubes.
• Hang pheromone wing traps for monitoring moth presence and timing of first-generation egg hatch.
• Lightly cultivate areas to prepare for a summer cover crop.

Infrastructure

Crop Planning

Bed Prep

Seeding Indoors for Transplants

• Any and all succession plantings of lettuce, fennel, broccoli, chicory, summer squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, basil, etc.

Planting in the Ground

• Carrots, cilantro, dill, parsnip, leeks, onions, amaranth grain and greens, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, radish, chois, beets, magentaspreen, spinach, orach, chard, quinoa, burdock, lettuce, peas, bush and pole beans, dry beans, corn, potatoes, purslane, calendula, aster, cosmos, zinnia, amaranth, marigold, tithonia, sunflower
• If night temperatures are warm enough and the weather is dry enough in certain parts of Cascadia, tomatoes may be planted out under plastic or row cover this month. Watch for slug pressure, and hold off til night temperatures are over 50F if you’re unsure.

Animals

• Prepare livestock sales advertisements. Good photos of animals being listed for sale and a clear, clean description of the critter and their selling points help move sales.
• Make sure all registered stock paperwork is ready to go with animals that are listed for sale.
• Plant livestock feeds such as sunflowers, beans, beets and greens.

June

Harvesting

Perennial Maintenance

• Apply Michael Phillips’ third holistic spring spray as described in The Holistic Orchard (liquid fish, pure neem oil, effective microbes). Aim at leaf canopy and developing fruitlets.
• Apply kaolin clay. Phillips recommends repeating every five to seven days for the next 2-3 weeks.
• Gather sticky traps.
• Begin mowing of ground cover and mulch thickly around the dripline of trees.
• Watch for scap this time of year. Phillips recommends an application of microbes and seaweed, but also acknowledges some growers will apply sulfur.

Infrastructure

Crop Planning

Bed Prep

Seeding Indoors for Transplants

Planting in the Ground

Animals

• Plan for breeding. Locate studs if needed and start tracking heat cycles.
• Swap paperwork with any intended studs or leases to ensure that all animals involved have been tested clean and are registered if applicable.
• Ensure animals are healthy and up to date on bio-security screenings and vaccinations.
• Check fence lines and ensure that all fences are in good repair.
• Consider electric fencing to enable easy rotational grazing.

Winter is a time for maintenance on many levels. Self-care, cleaning and restoring tools, fixing up infrastructure, mucking stalls, perfecting your crop rotation and planting schedule, studying up on recent publications, reading seed catalogs, tractor maintenance, etc.

December

Harvesting

• From the field: Brussels sprouts, kale, cabbage, chicory, radicchio, carrots, parsnips, turnips, rutabaga, beets, sunchokes, leeks, burdock, scorzonera, salsify
• In hoop house/high tunnel/low tunnel: Mustard greens.
• From storage: Winter squash (maxima, moschata), onions, garlic, shallots, grains
• Microgreens are always a quick and reliable source of greens through the winter and spring. The shallow open flats are very useful for microgreen production, which we carry in the Concentrates’ showroom, as well as coir and kelp extract. With the low light and heat conditions of winter, heat mats and supplemental lighting are very helpful for reliable and quality production.

Perennial Maintenance

• Once leaves fall on raspberries, cut back old growth to soil level.
• Pest management: check for deer incursions weekly; show shoe around the base of tree trunks to pack down vole tunnels.
• Order rootstock; collect scions for grafting.
• Prune all bearing trees, establishing an open structure of branches that allow maximum penetration of sunlight and circulation.
• Remove rotted fruit still hanging on the trees to reduce rot spore inoculum.

Infrastructure

• Tool Maintenance: take a file to all blades on hoes, harvest knives, hoof trimmers, pruners.
  • Josh Volk has a great article on tool sharpening that he wrote for Growing for Market in 2010
• Tractor, engine, and implement winterization and maintenance.
• Sanitize harvest bins, buckets, sinks, and knives.
• Clean and sanitize greenhouse tables, propagation & seeding area
• Do all-farm tidying, organizing, and consolidating.
• Inspect and purchase worn-out items: drip tape? Row cover? Weed barrier? Greenhouse film?

Crop Planning

• Perfect your crop rotation: Are you maximizing your soil’s potential to grow cover crops? Keeping the soil covered throughout the season? Maintaining biodiversity and attracting beneficial insects? How many pounds of PAN did you harvest last year–would it be appropriate to adjust the ratio of legumes to cereals?
• Interpret your soil test and determine your fertilizer blend for next year, source its ingredients.
• Prepare seed order: The Pick A Carrot search engine is a great tool to use to compare prices and availability of Organic and conventional seeds from different seed companies – it can cut your time searching for seeds in half.
• Now is the time to read and catch up on new lean farm techniques, soil health building methods, and the current discussions circulating in farm circles. Renew your subscription to Growing for Market!
• Sign up for and attend off-season conferences, like Small Farm School, the Small Farms Conference, The Culinary Breeding Network‘s Variety Showcase & Squash Sagra, Friends of Family Farmers‘ Fill Your Pantry & Infarmations, Oregon Tilth‘s Organicology, the Tilth Alliance conference, the Home Orchard Society‘s All About Fruit Show, etc. Check out our events page to stay up to date on goings on in the PNW Ag community!

Propagation

• Source/purchase your potting soil(s) and germinating mixes, or their components.
• Inspect your trays and source/purchase as needed.
• Organize your work area and tools–dibblers, seeders, mixing equipment, writing implements, record-keeping paperwork, tray labels, heat mats/lights, wicking irrigation.
• Compost tea can efficiently be applied to starts as you water them. Does your brewer work, and do you have the ingredients on hand? Molasses, worm castings?
• Do you fertigate your seedlings? Gather your fish emulsion, or other soluble nitrogen source.
• Do you provide trace minerals and myco inoculants? Gather your kelp emulsion and mycorrhizal inoculants for a pre-transplant dunk.

 

Animals

• Have a fecal eggs per gram count done on animals that are breeding and poultry, most veterinarians offer this service or ship fresh samples to MidAmerica to receive counts via email.
• If animals need to be dewormed based on fecal results, find the right product for the parasites and follow up with a fecal to ensure treatment was effective. Most dewormers do have an egg, meat and milk withdrawal time. Planning to treat while animals are not producing will help avoid non-productive weeks during a busy season.
• Ensure that all creatures have a dry, draft-free, well-ventilated location to escape the wet, windy December weather.
• Visually check all animals and do a hands-on check for body condition. Animals wearing their heavy winter coats are often much thinner than they appear. By physically putting your hands on your animals you will have a much better idea of their weight. Bucks and rams in particular should be carefully checked over as being in rut tends to run them down.
• Pick-up a book or two to self-educate on your animals. Concentrates has a wonderful collection of animal wellness books available for sale including, but not limited to: “Keeping Livestock Healthy” by N. Bruce Haynes, D.V.M., “Temple Grandin’s Guide to Working With Farm Animals” by Temple Grandin and “Holistic Goat Care” by Gianaclis Caldwell.

January

Harvesting

• From the field: beets, storage radishes, turnips, rutabaga, carrots, leeks, sunchokes, scorzonera, burdock, salsify
• In hoop house/high tunnel/low tunnel: Mustard greens
• From storage: Winter squash (maxima, moschata), onions, garlic, shallots, grains

Perennial Maintenance

• Pest management: check for deer incursions weekly; show shoe around the base of tree trunks to pack down vole tunnels.
• Prune all bearing trees, establishing an open structure of branches that allow maximum penetration of sunlight and circulation.
• Collect scions for grafting
• Remove mummified fruit still on trees to reduce rot spore inoculum.

Infrastructure

• Take inventory of all irrigation, row cover, propagation, tools, traps, etc.
• Test heating system in greenhouse and check for repairs

Bed Prep

• Make fertilizer order according to fall soil test results (now through February)
• Mix or order soil for seeding

Crop Planning

• Make seed orders by January 1st
• Order perennial rootstock for grafting
• Order potato seeds
• Order bareroot strawberry plants
• Order asparagus corms
• Order cover crop seed

Seeding Indoors/Greenhouse

• Onions, leeks, artichoke, cardoon, endive, lettuce

Animals

• Start prepping for new life on the farm! Consider where your animals will deliver their new babies and start assembling needed supplies.
• If kidding, calving, lambing, farrowing, foaling and so on is new to you find a mentor that has a few years of experience and line up a vet that has assisted in your species.
• For registered stock, be sure paperwork is ready and in order.
• Find a place to buy honey bee nucs and get hives and bee-keeping gear in order.

February

Harvest

• From the field: Leeks, claytonia
• In the hoop house/high tunnel/low tunnel: Mustard green
• From storage: Winter squash (maxima, moschata)

Perennial Maintenance

• Finish pruning fruit bearing perennials.
• Chip prunings for ground cover, but remove obviously cankered wood.
• Finish composting and mulching any perennials that were not finished last fall.
• Finish thinning canes.
• Plant new trees as early as possible.
• Remove any spiral trunk guards used on young trees.

Infrastructure

• Order needed drip irrigation, row cover, propagation trays, tools, traps, etc.
• Turn on greenhouse heating system
• Set up trellising for tuberous and bulbing flowers sending up shoots, ie. peonies, anemones and ranunculus.

Bed Prep

• Look for a dry window to mow and do a very shallow till of cover crops that are starting to bloom or are sitting on bed space that will need to be planted within the next 4-8 weeks.

Propagation

• Gather your tools (dibblers, seeders, trays, record-keeping paperwork, labels).
• Gather your potting soils and components.
• Gather any other amendments–fish emulsion, kelp, compost tea, mycorrhizal inoculants.
• On heat tables: Celeriac, onions, leek, artichoke, cardoon, endive, lettuce, spinach, cilantro, kale, chard, broccoli raab, cabbage, chinese cabbage, bok choi heads, endive, parsley, celery

Planting in Ground Under Cover – Late February

• Carrot, arugula, broccoli raab, cress, mustards, turnips, chois, miner’s lettuce, mache, endive, shungiku, radishes, onions, garlic, onion sets, fava bean, peas, fenugreek

• Plant new fruit trees and berries as early as possible
• Inoculate perennial roots with ecto or endo mycorrhizae when planting

Animals

• Prepare fresh bedding for animals delivering in a barn a week or so before anticipated due date. Maintain the area so that the bedding remains clean and dry.
• Sign up to be a honey bee swarm catcher!
• Learn how to do your own fecal exams! The University of Maryland and the University of Rhode Island have a great online learning tools.

March

Harvest

• From the field: Claytonia
• From the hoop house/high tunnel/low tunnel: Mustard greens

Perennial Maintenance

• First holistic spring spray, suggests Michael Phillips, of liquid fish, pure neem oil, & effective microbes.
• He also recommends applying an organic fertilizer blend to nonbearing trees in order to grow a strong framework of branches quickly.
• Train branch crotch angles on young trees with limb spreaders.
• Weed around nonbearing trees.
• Check trunks for borer damage.

Infrastructure

• Begin installing drip irrigation into the fields as you transplant.

Bed Prep

• Pull old and less productive planting of strawberries if you need to make room in your crop rotation. General rule of thumb is that strawberries loose productivity after three years.
• Look for a dry window to mow and do a very shallow till of cover crops that are starting to bloom or are sitting on bed space that will need to be planted within the next 4-8 weeks.
• Cover crop mowing and incorporation takes place when they first begin flowering. Consider submitting a cover crop analysis to OSU’s Central Analytic Lab. Sampling and lab submission instructions here.
• Amend your fields as you prepare for planting. Consider soil temperature when timing your nitrogen application: remember than the phase of rapid N uptake, which varies by species, is about four weeks from germination; but nitrogen does not mineralize very quickly in cold soils. Give your amendments time to become available, or plan to use highly soluble sources like fish emulsion.
• Spreaders should be calibrated and maintained.

Seeding Indoors for Transplants

• Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, tomatillo, ground cherry, lettuce, endive, bok choi heads, cabbage, kale, celery, parsley, fennel, cabbage, cauliflower, spinach

Planting in Ground

• Favas, mustard greens, onions, chervil, cilantro, fennel, parsley, arugula, cress, salad radish, turnips, spinach, chard, peas, claytonia, carrots, beets, chicories, salsify, scorzonera, shungiku
• Late March: Sunchokes, potatoes
• Perennials: Bareroot strawberry plants – planting into landscape fabric can be incredibly useful to keep weeds down and keep plants from putting too much energy into spreading runners.

Animals

• Have a fecal eggs per gram count done on animals that might have a high count such as new mothers and babies between the ages of 8 weeks and 16 weeks , most veterinarians offer this service or ship fresh samples to MidAmerica to receive counts via email.
• Ensure that all milking equipment is in good working order and sanitized including stanchions, buckets milk machines and storage containers.
• Strip and sanitize grow-out areas.
• Order new poultry chicks and ensure brooding areas and implements are cleaned, disinfected and in working order. Make sure that heating sources are in working order and that the brooder is able to maintain age-appropriate temps.
• If there is a warm, sunny day, check on bee hives! Make sure everyone is healthy and happy and feed if needed. If there is a die-out, clean and sanitize for new bees.