Growing is well underway on our farm, but by the looks of our small farmstand in the month of May you might wonder, “What’s goin on?”
John-Paul’s Farm is located on the edge of the Allegheny Mountains just before the Allegheny Plateau begins, around 1,600 ft of elevation. We have fertile, rocky soil, the wind is always blowing, and you can count on it being an average of five degrees colder here which makes a big impact on sensitive young plants, especially early in the season (think 32º versus 27º F).
As first generation vegetable farmers, we make do with what we have until we earn our way towards investing in improved infrastructure and equipment. Something we’ve been lacking is season-extending infrastructure, but thanks to support from the PA Department of Agriculture’s Fresh Food Financing Initiative, we’re currently building some high tunnels to help us grow food earlier and later each year.
Included in what we lack is a properly heated greenhouse–we still start our plants in our home under lights before moving them outdoors to an unheated greenhouse. As of mid-may we’ve started over 20,000 seedlings in our home…! We diligently follow our planting schedule spreadsheet and closely watch the weather to make this shuffle possible.
Soon we’ll see our leafy greens sizing up and the potato leaves start to pop out of the ground. In addition to everything we’ve transplanted, we’ve sowed thousands of seeds directly in the dirt too. Each week we plant more and we’re just as eager to eat the produce as you are.
Spring is a wild time of year when the weather is up and down and we’re making a lot of investments in the soil and plants. Thank you for supporting us–we can’t wait to bring you more vegetables soon!
-Jane
Find us at the Squirrel Hill Farmers Market in Pittsburgh, PA every Sunday 9AM – 1PM
Find us at the Indiana County Farmers Market in Indiana, PA every Saturday from 9AM – 12PM