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
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
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...
Ups and downs
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...
Weed Management
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...
Green garlic and more hot weather
The hot weather continued this week, with temperatures over 80 degrees on Tuesday, meaning the hoop house was up in the 90s! Warm springs sound like a good thing, with plants grower faster and getting ready for harvest sooner. The peas are about twice as tall as they were at this time last year! But in fact I find this type of weather at this time of year pretty trying. Spring is already the busiest time on the farm for us. The majority of what we grow is planted sometime between mid-March and mid-May, meaning that we are putting in an unprecedented number of seeds and seedlings along with trying...
Heirlooms, & even more on garlic
Okay, I promise not to spend an entire third post talking about garlic, but as fresh garlic season nears an end, I did want to share this great post found by a longtime friend and regular market shopper. If you’ve been curious about the difference between fresh and cured garlic and wondering how to use the fresh variety, click here to check out this article, aptly titled Fresh Garlic, and What To Do With It! I especially loved the details on what to do with each part of the fresh head and can’t wait to try to recipe for cream of garlic. In other farm news, the first of the...