How to Farm in a Snowstorm

by Oliver

The rattle of thousands of tiny seeds, the aroma of wetted soil, the vibrant green of tiny sprouts… perhaps seem like the last things that should be on our minds in the midst of this blistering cold and waist high drifts of snow! But winter isn’t entirely down time here at Wilde Fell. We continue to trudge out to the barn every day to care for our sheep and chickens; we’re on-boarding our two newest “employees,” Granite and Marble; we’re planning our season, week by week, and we’re starting our first seeds inside.

It might seem strange that many of the crop staples brought to New England from northern Europe would need starting indoors, but here in Maine we seem to get the short end of both sticks (temperature and daylight). Atlantic ocean currents chill our climate while our more southerly latitude shorten our summer days. Compared to much of (Old) England, our soil temperatures will reach 60° F (the minimum for many crops) one month later, and our daylight on the Summer Solstice will be an hour shorter! The best way to make the most of our relatively short growing season is to set up our grow-lights, warming mats, and seed starting trays in the cozy comfort of our own living room. Maybe in the future we’ll have a lovely heated greenhouse, but this year, our seeds will have to share space with the armchairs and piano.

Most of our seeds won’t need to be started for another month or two, but that still doesn’t mean we can sit back and twiddle our thumbs! Getting snowed in is a great excuse to work on planning. We’re new to our land, so we have to make a lot of assumptions based on town and regional data. The more details we can record, the better we can plan for future years. Luckily for Wilde Fell, I’m a huge fan of spreadsheets and is genuinely thrilled to spend my snow-day plugging dates into a color-coded Gantt chart. Of course I’ll make time to facilitate a meeting between Mousing Department representatives Granite and Marble and the Security Team (Barking at Cars Division).

Marble, ready to skip orientation and get right to mousing.

Granite, asleep on the job.