Farm & Garden Notes: Hello, February

Greetings from the farm—and happy February! No matter if the current iteration of Punxsutawney Phil spotted his shadow or not, the month has already brought a few peeks of spring to Bella Luna Farms:

Bookended by frosty mornings and dark, cozy evenings, our recent bout of afternoon sunshine has encouraged the resident animals to venture outside their warm, straw-lined stalls and coops. The ‘girls’, still thick with their long winter coats, nibble on hay and tidbits of grass under the eaves of the barn, clamouring to say hello as we go by; the donkey lazes in his paddock, moving just enough hour by hour to stay in the sunlight; and the chickens are often seen strutting around their outdoor enclosure.

We, too, try to take advantage of the sunny hours, getting compost prepped for spring gardening, gathering fresh herbs in the greenhouse, collecting fresh eggs and visiting the farmhouse creamery to check the Tomme cheese rinds aging in our cave. In addition to pouring over seed catalogs for the upcoming growing season and prepping recipes for the weekly boxes, we are also polishing off an exciting new feature for our website, an online index with links to all the Farm & Larder recipes from the past year (coming soon!). And, as we catalog spring recipes—favorites like roasted ramps topped with soft-poached eggs, or fruit crisps crafted with rhubarb grown under forcing jars—we can’t help but cross our fingers the nation’s most famous groundhog ditched his shadow in favor of an early spring for us all.