touchtheearthfarm.com Blog

Is this global warming? Maybe. We’re certainly seeing temperature extremes and high winds that some experts associate with it.

Last week, our temps dropped to 14°F at night, and this week, they’ve risen to 70°F during the day, not to mention the gusts of wind up to 35-40 mph. Needless to say, the plants are not happy. That’s the down side of living in the Mid-Atlantic where we do—temps can go either way and often both, and that is hard on both plants and people.

The people, however, are making the most out of these warm days. Interestingly, Julia remembers her birthday (January 4th) as “warm” because we’ve had temps in the 60’s ever since she can remember, which means about the past 4 years.

The plants are hanging in there, though we’ve seen some significant yellowing of the romaine due to the heat and we’re continuing to deal with slug pressure under the plastic. The high tunnel helps to moderate these extremes a bit in addition to protecting the plants from the dessicating winds. Many of our early spring crops are coming in nicely, and growth should really pick up around groundhog day, as the days lengthen towards the equinox. New lettuces and spinach are growing, along with turnips, kohlrabi, Asian greens, cilantro, green onions and arugula.