Seeding

Soaking sugar snap pea seeds in milk overnight is supposed to help them germinate easier. Who knows, apparently it is the lactic acid in milk that breaks down the seed coating. Farmer No. 2 is lactose intolerant and remains skeptic.
Beets!

Iris blooming

The iris bulbs that the Colorado branch gifted us last year are blooming. One reason the iris is interesting is the design; side pedals are used as landing pads for pollinating insects.

Harvest: Root Vegetables

Because it takes a lot longer for the ground temperature to get to freezing, root vegetables can keep growing when it's freezing outside. It's science! We've gathered the last of said vegetables; beets, carrots and spring onions.

Harvest: Habañero Pepper

The hot little nuggets have arrived. The habañero peppers have begun to turn peach color indicating that they are ripe…if you're gutsy enough. The measure of hotness is called the scoville scale and hotness units are Scoville Heat Units (SHU). A bell pepper has 0 SHU, jalapeños have between 2,500–8,000 SHU, our peach friend above has between 100,000–350,000 SHUs. And official US government issue pepper spray has between 2,000,000– 5,000,000 SHUs. You can see how wide the scale can get… even on the conservative side these peppers are 10x hotter than a jalapeño. Farmer No. 2 sliced up the pepper to and is planning to play tricks on people with beverages. 

Vitamin C and Soluble Fiber

Steamed broccoli with basil (ours too) and garlic. Oh, and butter…to make sure we are not on a diet.

Brooklyn Farm's First Flower Post

Green beans

Sugar snap peas
Tomatoes
It is possible for each flower on these plants to produce a fruit (scientifically speaking each of these is a fruit). Of course to produce a fruit, each flower needs to be pollinated by a bee… fingers crossed. We have seen bees flying around which is a good sign. If it all works out, fruit will grow out of the flower opening. The green beans and sugar snap peas are particularly satisfying because they have grown from seed.