Cold at last!

November 2, 2020 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

We finally had our first real freeze of the fall, so it’s officially time to start clearing out the summer beds and getting them ready for winter, whether that be by cover cropping, mulching, or tapping. The cold-hardy crops are still happily growing, some in the open and some under a protective layer of row cover. Even better, the colder weather can actually improve the flavor of a lot of these crops, as dropping temperatures causes them to increase their sugar content. This is the reason that crops like spinach, kale, and carrots can be sweeter when harvested after several frosts. Including this week, we will be delivering veggies for...

Lettuce Galore

October 27, 2020 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

Fall planting is always the most challenging to plan as you never know how the weather will play out. If it’s a cold fall, it is possible to end up with a harvesting gap as growth slows. In contrast, with a warm fall like we’re having this year, it’s easy to end up with multiple plantings of the same crop becoming harvestable at the same time! This week, that is the case for lettuce and, as a result, we will have a wide selection of different lettuce varieties available. We will be harvesting red and green butter heads, red romaine, red and green leaf lettuce, and romaine hearts, making it a...

Still warm

October 20, 2020 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

It has been a very warm autumn so far. Despite some unusually early light frosts and some more over this last weekend, we have yet to have any heavy frosts or freezes that would put an end to the season for summer crops. While we’ve passed the first harvest wave for our tomatoes, the plants have actually put on a huge amount of beautiful new green growth in the last few weeks and some of the cherry tomato plants are even flowering again! After a weekend with lows of in the thirties, we’re looking at a week with highs into the low 80s several times, a definite oddity for late...

Feast or famine

October 12, 2020 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

This year has really been feast-or-famine when it comes to rain and this isn’t the first time that we’ve gone a couple of weeks with no rain followed by nearly two inches overnight. The biggest challenge with inconsistent rain is germinating our direct-seeded crops. We plant in three different ways. Some things are planted via transplant. These seeds are started inside in trays until they are between 4 and 8 weeks old and then are planted out into the field. Transplanted crops range from lettuce heads and kale to tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant. A very small number of crops (potatoes and garlic) are planted from live plant matter. Garlic is...

Restoring the soil

October 4, 2020 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

At this time of year, we’re quickly moving out of the “productive” part of the planting season and into the restorative part, a.k.a. cover crops! We try to involve cover crops regularly throughout our entire season. Cover crops serve a variety of important uses on the farm. During the summer, we plant buckwheat whenever we have a month or more before the next crop gets planted in a bed. Buckwheat is an extremely fast grower and therefore provides the important benefit in the summer of outcompeting weeds. Over the winter, we rely primarily on two types of cover crop mixtures- oat/pea and rye/vetch. Oats and peas are both cold-sensitive crops that...

Fall veggies

September 27, 2020 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

We did end up having several light frosts last week as temperatures dipped into the mid-to-low thirties for three nights in a row, a true rarity for mid-September! However, most of the warm-weather crops survived the shock to varying degrees. The basil, which is one of the most cold-sensitive crops we grow, experienced some noticeable damage. Mike pruned off the affected areas last week, so it will be a wait-and-see game before we know if there will be enough regrowth and recovery for harvest this week. The tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant, all of which are quite tall at this point, were largely unaffected by the light ground-level frosts. Even the...

Chilly

September 21, 2020 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

This has been a strange and challenging year for all of us in so many ways and the weather has certainly been one of them. At this time last year, we were in a drought, followed by an excessively cold November, a very warm and dry winter, and then a late cold snap in the spring. Summer was persistently hot and continued fairly dry and now we are getting near-freezing temperatures a month before usual! Our first frost date has typically fallen right around mid-October and last year we had our first frost on the morning of October 19. This year, we had a light frost on the morning of...

Okra

September 14, 2020 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

This is our first year growing okra and we’ve been enjoying it both on the farm and in the kitchen! Granted, the plants are now 7+ feet tall, Mike has to bend them over in order to harvest, and I have no idea how we’re going to mow them down when the season ends, but they’ve been producing like crazy for months now and their flowers are nothing if not stupendous. I had never used okra much before, but have come to cook with it regularly over the course of this summer. Our friends and members of our CSA first put us on to using okra in Indian-style recipes and...

Fall changes

September 7, 2020 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

It’s a big week in our family off of the farm. Today, our son started Kindergarten! We decided to homeschool and had a wonderful first morning followed by a productive afternoon on the farm. This year has really required us to think on our feet. Previously, our son had been in full-time childcare while we worked. In March, like so many people, we suddenly found ourselves in the position of being both full-time parents and full-time farmers. I would never have thought that we could pull it off, but I have actually found many unexpected blessings in the midst of everything. While undeniably challenging at times, it has been truly...

Seedlings

August 31, 2020 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

It’s definitely feeling like fall today, with a cool, drizzly day outside. Lots of things on the farm are pointing towards the latter part of the season. I seeded the first rye/vetch cover crop yesterday, which will cover many of the beds for the entire winter, helping to reduce compaction, loosen the soil, and add nutrients when incorporated into the soil in the spring. This morning, I seeded the second-to-last round of transplants for the entire season! I start seeding transplants in mid-January each year. These baby plants are started in trays and then planted out into the field after 4-8 weeks. From mixing the media in which they are...