7/22 This Week on the Farm
On Saturday we had our open house here on the farm. We ended up with a pretty good turnout Many of you came and asked questions about our vegetables, how to use them, tips on how to grow them, etc. We are always glad to answer any questions that you may have about how we grow our veggies. After all, it is your food and you should know its story. We hope to have one or two more events this season, so stay tuned for more information.
Another week has passed on the farm and we continue to fight for our vegetables. Whether its against weeds, insects, critters, or disease, it seems the threats never cease.
Monday we rescued our strawberries from the weeds that had seemingly consumed them. However, after we cleaned them out, they look really good and should produce for us next year. We’ve also been cutting out and tilling up early plantings of lettuce, peas, and spinach that are no longer edible. We will reuse these areas later in the summer when we start planting cool-season crops again for the fall boxes.
We know that our sweet corn crop is getting close now… the raccoons are into it. Wednesday morning we came out to the field to see that the first row of our sweet corn nearest the highway was damaged by overnight plunderers. Those masked menaces won’t outsmart us though. We found their entry and set out some live traps for them. Also we plan to clean the weeds away from our electric fence so that it works a little bit better. With our new weedwacker that shouldn’t take too long.
Our zucchini are suffering from some blossom end rot. We may have some calcium issues to deal with on our field. So that is why there isn’t zucchini in the box this week. We plan on remedying that problem to hopefully get you some more zucchini in the coming weeks. Now that we know that we may have a calcium problem, we will hopefully be able to prevent blossom end rot in our tomatoes and peppers.
As I write this on Wednesday night, the beans have just been picked, and most things are in for the night. Now I must go and hose off our dog, who despite having the name Wash, is really quite pungent right now. Good old raccoon poop.
Thanks to Dave and Kate Carlson for coming out and helping us pick and pack boxes these last few weeks!