Monthly Archive: June 2018
Hello Everyone! So I guess I should have known better than to have believed the weatherman. I postponed the farm visit based on a forecast of rain and thunderstorm through most of the weekend. We received virtually no precipitation except for a few moments of drizzle and two brief showers — both of which occurred when I ventured out on my seeding tractor to try and get some planting done! (more…)
Here is a quick but tasty recipe using kale, from the William Sonoma cookbook, Cooking from the Farmers’ Market; it can’t get much simpler! The recipe serves 6. (more…)
Hi Everyone! So, it was another reasonably good week weather-wise here on the farm. Temperatures have been mild (at least until today), and we had a midnight deluge on Wednesday night. A slow steady rain is always better than a downpour, and this one only gave us about a quarter of an inch, but it was helpful for getting some seeds up and for watering the brassicas and the root crops. As we head into late June and July the rain often starts to diminish and we start worrying about a drought. Many of the summer crops are watered with drip irrigation. For other crops we have overhead sprinklers, but it is a lot of extra work for us. We just seeded some okra and lima beans and I am in the process of planting the winter squash and pumpkins so a little rain will be much appreciated. (more…)
Hello Everyone, I am happy to report that the weather has been uncharacteristically cooperative this past week. The temperatures have been moderate and we have had several nice gentle overnight rains. I think that there are few people other than farmers who can find such joy in a nice rain; perhaps an Englishman away from home and missing his native climate. (more…)
Hi Folks, I hope you had a pleasant Memorial Day weekend. I apologize that I have not been able to get a farm update out to you until now. It has been a very difficult spring for us here at the farm. I am sure that most of you noticed that winter hung around well into April this year. We still had snow flurries flying on April 13! As a result we were unable to begin planting until Mid- April; about 2 weeks later that normal for some crops. In addition, the cold soil caused poor emergence in some of the early direct seeded crops, such as peas. We worked diligently to get caught up with our spring planting and had largely succeeded. We were then a bit behind on setting out some of the warm weather crops. We were getting caught up on these when we had a week of rain, including a strong storm which ripped the plastic off one of our high tunnel greenhouses and knocked power out for three days! We are now back on track and continue to work hard to ensure a bountiful season. (more…)