Spring has sprung. Our lambing season began early this morning when Patches (#19) delivered a single ewe lamb. Phoebe and Josie – two Semester 52ers who had signed up for volunteer lamb watch – found the dark, speckled babe already standing when they arrived to the barn at 3:00 am. Mom and baby are both healthy and thriving. Five more ewes are pregnant – stay tuned! 
In other baby news, our onion seeds are germinating. They aren’t much to look at – just a few green tufts – but whoa! the potential in what we’re seeing.
We scatter seeds of the allium family (onion, leek, and scallion) in black plastic flats filled with a mix of potting soil, peat moss, and amendments. Seeds want to be covered with soil one to three times their height and to have good soil-to-seed contact for germination to occur, so we sprinkle some soil on top and tuck them in with some light pressure.
These allium babies will live under grow lights for a few weeks on a heat mat before heading over to the greenhouse at the farm, where they’ll experience more variations in temperature. Come April, we’ll move them into cold frames on the farm for awhile to harden off (get used to changing conditions), and then we will plant them out in freshly plowed soil.
The alliums are the first vegetables that we seed each year and a sure sign of spring. Let us know if you’ve been planning or planting your garden these day !
