Coming out of deep winter...

Can't believe it's already February! We're about halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. Call it Imbolc, Saint Brigid's Day, or just Groundhog Day's Eve, we're coming out of deep winter and there's literal light at the end of this metaphorical tunnel.

As has become usual, there have been some big fluctuations in the weather the past few weeks. We had several nights in the single digits and days not much higher, where even in our greenhouses it was too cold to harvest spinach (the sun needs to come out to thaw the plants, and it was also cloudy for most of that time). But then it got warm, the snow melted, it rained, etc. When it gets warmer and wetter it's really important to open the greenhouses as much as possible to vent and lower the humidity. It's a delicate balance of regulating the air and soil temperatures so the plants stay healthy and alive, and regulating the humidity so the spinach leaves aren't as susceptible to foliar diseases (I've seen greenhouses that stayed closed for too much of the winter and the plants inside turned to mush).