Throughout the winter months, we have been preparing the Highlands site for our first growing season. Some of you may have joined us in December for our two workdays, when we cleaned out the lower level of the barn, the greenhouse, the potting shed, and the springhouse. We've met with contractors to install a heater in the greenhouse, spoke with PECO about getting electric to our well site, and plotted out a proposed perimeter for the deer fence. Anyone who walked the fields in the first week of February may have noticed that we applied our first soil amendments to the field.

In the coming weeks, if conditions and equipment allows, we will continue to work the fields. Initially, we'll do a few passes with the disk to allow the applied nutrients to work into the soil. In early March, the fields will be plowed, using a moldboard plow. This will physically turn the top layer of the soil to breakdown the sod layer. We will then continue with our bed prep, with another round of disking, rototilling, and another application of nutrients.   By early April, the ground should be ready for our first plantings.

With the greenhouse still unheated, we're renting space from Meadowbrook Farm in Jenkintown. A whole day was spent there starting the first seeds for the Highlands. This seeding included kale, broccoli, collard greens, celery, celeriac, fennel, chard, and parsley. By the beginning of March, the greenhouse at the Highlands should be ready for our seedlings.

This is an exciting time of year in farming. The field plans are getting the final touches. Seedlings in the greenhouse are poking through the soil. On a sunny afternoon in the mid-forties, there is a sense of endless potential and like spring is coming any day.