Farm News – June 3, 2013
Hi Folks, Well we started out too dry and too cold and now we’ve had too wet and too hot. So in just the first two months of the growing season we’ve covered all the bases. Someone asked me a few weeks back if I thought it would continue to be dry and I replied that I reckoned it would remain very dry until it began to rain too much (I didn’t actually say “reckoned” that’s just literary embellishment). I didn’t expect, nor wish to be proven correct so soon.
But it seems that extremes are the new normal and we’re just going to have to cope and adapt. The truth is the farm looks great and thing are going fairly well. The rains came just in the nick of time and just as we finished our first rotation of the sprinklers around the fields. I was able to get decent germination on most of the direct seeded crops with the overhead irrigation. While the transplants weren’t really growing much during the dry spell they really took off after the rain.
The lettuces, radicchio, and brassicas are growing exuberantly and the spinach looks splendid. One of the few casualties of the dryness and heat is that the purple bok choy is bolting (for you newbies that’s farmer talk for flowering or “going to seed”). We will have to cut it soon and hold it in the cooler for next week’s first delivery, or it will be lost. The heat came just as we were setting out the solaneceous (tomato, pepper, eggplant) and cucurbit (squash, cukes, melons) crops which thrive in hot weather. The summer squash had actually been planted a few weeks earlier and were growing aided and protected (did I mention we had a frost on May 25!) under a cover of an ag fabric which holds in some warmth at night. They have now been uncovered and look fantastic, with many already bearing small fruit (yes, dear friends, zucchini is a fruit).
So there you have it, we’ve been working hard for you and in spite of the climactic challenges we are planted up (Well, almost!) and on track for a great season. I hope to see many of you at the farm visit/picnic this Saturday. I really enjoy the chance to show off the fields. If you can’t make it on Saturday you are welcome to visit on Sunday or on one of the pea-picking volunteer days coming up. One more week ‘til fresh veggies!!! Yippee!
Farmer John
