New Discoveries

July 18, 2019 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

While we take a break from growing head lettuce in the hottest months of the year, we aim to grow salad mix all year long. However, this can be a struggle in the middle of summer for the simple reason that it is very hard to get lettuce to germinate in hot weather. I finally discovered the reason why this week and found it fascinating. Lettuce is a descendant of a wild plant originating in the Mediterranean area, where summers are hot and dry, meaning that any wild lettuce that germinated in the summer would most likely die. As an adaptation to avoid this, wild lettuce and its descendants that...

Looking for shade!

July 4, 2019 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

It’s another scorcher this week, although we’re thankful that, unlike Fourth of July week last year, the humidity has remained pretty low, making the heat moderately more bearable. With the middle of the day fairly miserable outside, we’ve been aiming to get a lot of work done at either end of the day and fortunately this week we had several big tasks that we are able to complete in shady spots. This is our second week of the yearly garlic harvest. Our two earlier varieties came in last week and this week we brought in the final variety, called Chesnook Red. Although the actual harvest of the garlic of course...

Into summer

June 27, 2019 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

It’s been the first week with temperatures in the 90s and both us and the plants are working on adjusting! With real summer weather upon us, it’s the perfect time to say good-bye to some crops until the fall. This will be the last week for head lettuce until September and it’s a good thing as lettuce won’t tolerate many days this hot. We’ll also probably be harvesting the spring collard greens for the last time, although the kale and chard should hold on a bit longer. Snap peas will also be making their final appearance this or next week, so make sure to grab some while they’re around! Fortunately,...

Summer-y

June 20, 2019 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

This week has been the most humid yet. Wednesday felt like we were working in a lake, with the humidity sticking around 90% for most of the morning. With this more summer-y weather, we’re starting to see the onset of more of the summer pests and diseases, the latter of which I always find incredibly stressful. It’s hard to watch once beautifully perfect plants start to show the signs of the season. Most of our disease management regimen concentrates around rotating our crops, removing diseased plants when necessary, and helping the plants be healthy enough that they can withstand and grow through certain levels of damage. But it’s still hard...

Pest management

June 13, 2019 Market newsletters, Pests, Tips & Tools, Weekly Updates

You may have seen our recent post on Instagram and Facebook about pest management. I get a lot of questions at markets about this, so decided to share a video of one of our primary methods of pest control- physically going from plant to plant looking for and smashing problem bugs! But in fact, this technique only comes into play later (hence my reference to it as “remedial pest control” in the post’s comments). Preventative management is actually the biggest tool we have to combat pests. This means that we take measures to prevent or delay the impact of pests before they even show up or become a problem. Row...

Hawks & weather

June 6, 2019 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

We’ve been feeling incredibly lucky over the past week as numerous severe storms have bypassed us. On Sunday, a storm tracking from west to east dropped large hail about 15 minutes both west and east of us, but we only got heavy rain. For about the last month, I’ve nervously watched as multiple storms with threats of hail, high winds, and even tornadoes have moved through our area. I’ve never seen such consistent severe weather, especially this early in the year. Weather is by far the most stressful part of farming. It’s something we have absolutely no control over and can do nothing to affect. We just have to wait...

Ups and downs

May 30, 2019 Market newsletters, Pests, Tips & Tools, Weekly Updates

There’s a good and bad side to everything and the early heat this year is no different. This week, we’ve gotten to see both the ups and downs of this weather. On the positive side, we’re getting many of our crops in earlier than last year. This week, one of my yearly favorites, garlic scapes, will make its debut. Garlic scapes used to be seen as only a leftover bi-product of garlic production and were usually relegated to the farm’s own kitchen, but they’ve gained in popularity in recent years and for good reason. They combine the traditional taste of garlic with a hint of sweetness and are especially tasty...

Hot & cold

May 23, 2019 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

As frequently happens in the weeks surrounding our final spring frost date, the weather has been all over the place recently. Two Tuesdays ago, we had lows dipping to about 40 degrees, followed by a Sunday and Monday with temperatures up near 90! Because of the cold snap, I held off on putting most of our summer transplants into the ground until the end of last week, but now the fields are full of peppers, eggplant, tomato, cucumber, and zucchini plants and the first beans are pushing up through the ground. With temperatures up to summer-like levels, we decided it was time to put the shade cloth onto the hoop...

Weed Management

May 16, 2019 Garden techniques, Market newsletters, Tips & Tools, Weekly Updates

Although pest and disease management are the issues that most readily come to mind when thinking of organic farming, keeping the weeds in check is actually a more consistent challenge. Starting in early spring and continuing into the fall, we spend time every week making sure that the crops stay ahead of the weeds. In order to do this both effectively and efficiently, we rely upon a variety of techniques and tools. While we certainly do more than our share of pulling weeds by hand, we aim to minimize our time spent doing this by taking preemptive measures to help the crops outcompete the weeds from the get-go. Cover cropping...

Coming soon

May 9, 2019 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

As spring moves towards summer, more and more crops are becoming ready to harvest, so the selection at the market continues to grow nearly weekly. I’ve had a lot of questions about what new things will be available in the coming weeks, so wanted to do a quick update about what crops to expect soon! In the next few weeks, look forward to the first kohlrabi and spring onions. Spring onions look like huge scallions, but are really the uncured form of the onions most of us are used to eating. We harvest them before they are at the life stage when they can be cured for storage, so, like...