Garlic time!

November 1, 2018 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

Halloween week is always an extra exciting one on the farm as it marks the planting of the next year’s garlic! This Tuesday, we put in about 1,350 cloves of garlic, all planted from the biggest heads that we saved from each of our three varieties when we harvested them this past July. The smaller cloves were planted in a separate section and will be harvested next year as green garlic to further supplement our early spring offerings. The biggest and best of the cloves were planted to provide next year’s full-sized heads of garlic, as well as the seed garlic for 2020. Along with the two varieties of garlic...

Frosty weather

October 25, 2018 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

It’s official- last Friday morning we got our first frost of the fall, followed by another on Monday morning. While first frosts are frequently fairly light, both so far this year have been quite heavy frosts, not clearing until well into the morning. While this marks the end of the “summer” season, plenty of crops still grow through and even benefit from early fall frosts. Brassicas in particular have a unique way of protecting themselves from freezing. As the temperatures drop, these plants increase the sugar content in the water inside the plant, which acts like antifreeze to lower the temperature at which the water inside the plants freeze. This...

Fall to winter photo shoot

October 18, 2018 Market newsletters, Monthly Photo Shoots, Weekly Updates

This week at the market: Salad mix Head lettuce Baby kale Arugula Winter salad mix Spinach Scallions Radishes Beets Purple-top turnips Bok Choi Escarole Salad turnips Kohlrabi Rainbow chard Kale Collard greens Eggplant Sweet peppers Onions Potatoes...

Finally fall? And arugula salad

October 11, 2018 In the Kitchen, Market newsletters, Other recipes, Weekly Updates

The heat we have been experiencing the past two weeks has provided both benefits and challenges. We’ve definitely gotten larger harvests off of the kale, collards, and eggplant than we would have if temperatures had been more typical of this time of year. Both the peppers and the tomatoes in the hoop house have been loving the heat and coloring up accordingly, making it a shame that the outdoor tomatoes were done in by the wet summer as they would have been loving this late heat wave! More problematically, this is the very time in the fall when we are putting in the plantings that are supposed to see us...

Warmer weather

October 4, 2018 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

Despite last week’s cool, rainy weather, overall we have had an unusually warm fall. Normally, we would be preparing for our first frost of the fall in the coming weeks (our average first frost date here is around October 15). Instead, we’re looking at forecasts of temperatures as high as the 80s with lows only in the 60s until at least the end of next week. Fall is always a tricky time for planting as the weather can vary in this totally unpredictable manner and the continued heat has provided us with both challenges and benefits. We’ve been able to add in a bonus outdoor planting of salad mix, a...

Cole slaw and other greens

September 27, 2018 In the Kitchen, Market newsletters, Other recipes, Weekly Updates

Fall is definitely in the air around the farm. Last week, we tilled in a huge chunk of the spring beds and put down a winter cover crop of rye and vetch, which the very rainy weather over the last few days has already helped to germinate. The fall spinach in the hoop house is putting on it’s first true leaves and the last bed of outdoor salad mix is beginning to grow in the field. As the weather cools and the days grow shorter, more and more fall crops are appearing on our market table. Last week marked the first harvest from both our broccoli and cabbage plants. Cabbage...

A little sun

September 20, 2018 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

We finally got a bit of luck with the weather this week and the remnants of Hurricane Florence, which were initially supposed to hit us pretty badly, mostly passed us by. We ended up with sunny afternoons on Monday and Tuesday, despite forecasts for heavy rain both days. Still, even slightly more rain is not good news after the exceptionally wet year we have already had. We are seeing issues related to the persistent dampness everywhere, including on crops like kale, cabbage, broccoli, and carrots where I have never experienced this before. On the same note, the outdoor tomatoes are officially (and sadly) over for the season, done in by the...

And suddenly it’s fall

September 13, 2018 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

In less than a week, it seems we’ve transitioned from high summer right into autumn. Temperatures over the weekend didn’t climb out of the 60s, a nearly thirty degree difference from last week’s heat. All in all, we’re starting to get that end-of-season feeling on the farm, even though we still have several months of market to go. With cooler weather and no sun in the forecast for at least the next week, we finally removed the shade cloth that helped to keep our hoop house cool over the summer. This was just in time, as the first fall crops started going into the hoop house last week as we...

Endless Summer

September 6, 2018 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

I thought last week’s extreme heat would be the it for the year, but it looks like I was wrong. Writing this on Wednesday, we’re in the midst of our third day with temperatures into the 90s and heat indices much higher and we still have another day of the same forecast for tomorrow. Not that I want it to be winter yet, but I’m definitely hoping for some slightly cooler weather to come. Despite the heat, the market table is starting to turn towards fall. We’ve harvested in all of the Delicata and Acorn squash and will have the first scallions and fall radishes this week. And even with...

Oats & peas

August 30, 2018 Market newsletters, Weekly Updates

After some autumn-like weather last week, we got another blast of summer this week with temperatures into the mid-90s and heat indexes even higher! While I’m sure all the summer crops will appreciate the hotter weather, it can be a little tricky keeping the fall crops happy in late summer through severe heat like this. Even with hot, humid weather, the preparations for fall continue. As an early summer crop, the cucumbers and summer squash had their last hurrah last week, so on Monday Mike finished the huge job of mowing down, plowing, and tilling those beds so that I could get the first winter cover crop planted. Cover cropping...