This Week on the Farm 5/29
Mercifully, Mother Nature dropped some rain on us this weekend! We received about 1/2″ or maybe a little more. The vegetables always look so much better after a natural rain. But on the flip-side the weeds love it too! At least for a few days we can pull weeds instead of irrigating in the evenings… a little change of pace.
The strawberries are in full force right now! They are delicious and incredibly early. Again, since the season will have ended by the time our first box goes out, all members who come out to the farm get their first quart of berries for free as part of your share. They are about at peak today. Although they are on the small side, the flavor is still amazing.
The arugula is looking good, as is the pac choy and the first planting of romaine lettuce. Yesterday we weeded them and then fertilized with Chickity Doo Doo. We also cultivated the celery and the second planting of romaine. The second planting of loose leaf lettuce is coming in really strong, I think we finally figured out how to plant it so that it comes in thick. Our first planting is a little sparse because some of the rows on the planter were not dropping enough seed. Even with some bare spots it still looks awfully tasty…
With the dry weather we had put off a lot of the field prep work for areas where transplants are going. Now that there is a little moisture we have quite a bit of field work to get done in the next couple of days. Today we worked the area for the sweet potatoes and got those in the ground. We received them on Friday last week, but even though they were sitting in the cool basement over the weekend, they still look a lot better than the ones we got last year. With Tyler’s dad’s help and a little extra help from our high school workers we got them in the field in no time. We will keep watering them throughout the week to make sure they set good roots and don’t dry up on us.
This week is chock-full of transplanting that needs to be done. Peppers, eggplant, tomatillos, summer squash, zucchini, patty pan squash, winter squash, melons, cucumbers, and probably something else too that I can’t remember off hand right now, all go into the ground this week. Thankfully most of these things can be transplanted using our two row transplanter and we don’t have to crawl around on our hands and knees planting them by hand.
With the warmer weather, we also plan on taking the plastic off the high-tunnel and replacing it with shade cloth to keep the lettuce and other cool-loving crops from getting scorched in the summer sun. We also have plenty of weeding and cultivating to do to keep up with the weeds. The cool weather that’s on tap for this week should make it much more enjoyable to be working outside.
We still have some shares available, so make sure to get your forms in to us as soon as possible before we fill up! Our first delivery is a little more than two weeks away, I can’t believe the spring has flown by so fast.