Two Feet in the Dirt

As always seems to be the case, we’ve gone from famine to feast with rainfall. After several weeks of no rain at all, in the last week we received nearly two and a half inches of rain over just a few days! The summer crops have also had a rather strange start to life in the field, with their first week in the ground marked by record high temperatures that made watering them multiple times a day necessary. This was promptly followed this past weekend by temperatures plummeting to record lows, bottoming out in the low forties at night.

After completing the depressing task of pulling all of our onion plants out of the field, we’ve begun applying nematodes to all of the old onion and garlic beds. These microscopic organisms prey on the onion root maggot eggs and have been shown to be very effective in decreasing pressure from these pests, so fingers crossed that we are able to come through with some scallions in the fall. One of the great things about organic farming is that many of the remedies for various problems come in the form of increasing the biodiversity of our farm’s little ecosystem. As opposed to many conventional pesticides which kill everything indiscriminately, applying things like nematodes and compost help resolve issues on the farm while actually improving the overall health of the farm at the same time.

We’ll be harvesting the first of some new items this week. See below for the full harvest list and we’ll see you at the markets!

Farmers Katie & Mike

Harvest List:

• Lettuce salad mix
• Arugula
• Cabbage
• Garlic scapes
• Lettuce heads
• Radishes
• Hakurei turnips
• Red Russian kale
• Curly green kale
• Lacinato kale
• Collard greens
• Rainbow Chard
• Kohlrabi
• Carrots
• maybe: Snap peas
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