Farm News – November 6, 2014
Hello Everyone, so it’s November now; a frustrating month for farmers, or at least I find it so. The combination of short days, cold soil temperatures and even colder nights slows the growth and maturation of the crops to a snail’s pace. Frequent overcast days exacerbate the situation. The brassica crops grew a bit slowly during the dry period in late summer. Now that they have adequate moisture the limiting factors are warmth and sunshine. I look out over fields of broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage; big beautiful plants, and wonder when they will make heads. Will they delay until just before one of the bitterly cold nights that are all but certain to arrive in the weeks to come, only to be frozen solid and ruined?
The cabbage and broccoli are pretty tough but the cauliflower often succumbs to this type of mistreatment. Even the spinach, which prefers cool to hot and will survive the winter, grows at a painfully slow rate. The Romanesco cauliflower and one of the white varieties are beginning to head, so I am hopeful we will have them for the final 2 weeks of the season. For this week we will have broccoli for some and Brussel sprouts for others. We will also be shipping bok choy and either Napa or savoy cabbage.
The share for this week will be: spinach, lettuce, bok choy, sweet potatoes, red onion, either broccoli or Brussel sprouts, white potatoes, either Napa or savoy cabbage, choice of arugula or tatsoi, butternut squash and salad turnips.
Enjoy! Farmer John
