a break in the weather, finally

I am sitting here typing this to the glorious music of a steady rain. Enough carrying big pipes around the farm, it's time for the clouds to fulfill their end of the bargain.

The rain started during Tuesday evening's distribution. We had the sprinklers going full blast on the melon field. (Melons actually get sweeter the less water they recieve, but the leaves were curling up and we weren't sure the plants were going to make it at all!) As the downpour ensued, I turned to Farmer Dave & asked whether we should turn off the irrigation on the melons. He said no, let's not do that just yet. "I'm superstitious like that."

One must be tactful when making bargains with clouds.

I can feel the earth breathing deeply to let the moisture into it's dry crusty soil. Everywhere on the farm there is relief. Here's a chance to show you what's been going on the past few days:

Washing up onions on Monday (check out the shade tent!):
Garlic we processed today:
After taking it down from the barn, we cut off the stems, trim the roots, and peel away the outer layer.
Beautiful. This variety is called "Music" and Farmer Dave has been replanting from cloves that he saves every year for 10 years!
Here's a shot of the melon field. The lower portion of the picture is summer squash, then the watermelons and cantelope are the low-growing green in between. The tall white-flowered plant in the background is buckwheat that we planted in a bed to be a "harvest lane"... this means we can get a tractor in when it's time to harvest the heavy fruits, and don't break our backs trying to carry them all out! Also, the buckwheat is a fast-growing cover crop that not only shades out any weed attempts, but provides nectar for important pollinators & beneficial insects. Standing next to it, you can hear the incessant buzzing of thousands of little winged beings, of all shapes and sizes. Farmer Dave pointed out the tiny black parasitic wasps that prey on common crop pests.
And some pictures of the 3 Sisters Garden:
The corn is "tasseling" which means it sends up this flower on the top that's covered with pollen. This is the male part of the plant.
The pollen will be carried by the wind to the female part, the "silk", and then each pollinated silk thread will produce a plump kernel of corn down there on the cob... progeny for the next generation of corn.
The beans are starting to wrap around the cornstalks!
The amaranth is looking beautiful. It has tall sturdy stems like a sunflower, and I think would make an excellent replacement for the cornstalks as the "trellis sister".
The squash is quickly covering the ground. I mulched a section with old hay, but I think that soon the squash vines will act as a mulch and prevent weed growth anyway. Maybe the mulch would have been a better idea at the time of planting, eliminating the first few cultivations we did.
And here's a vegetable I'm really excited about:
I grew a few purple cauliflower & purple cabbage, even though Farmer Dave usually doesn't, because I think purple vegetables are just great. I'm pretty proud of them, too.
And another delicious meal:

I stir-fried these veggies up with some chili pepper & cilantro, and tried making a few corn tortillas from scratch. Pretty easy to do, just corn flour & salt & water, and cook them on an ungreased cast-iron pan for 5 minutes each side. Yum.

CSA members-- I promise tomatoes for you too soon! These are just the "teasers" to make you salivate... Don't worry, there will be a whole lot of them. I plan on doing some serious canning.

the good life

Hints of red hiding amidst the green tomato vine jungle... the first red ripe tomatoes.

A Sunday morning farmer's breakfast:
1. Sausage from the farmer down the road (Thunderhill Farm).
2. Eggs from our hens, sunnyside up.
3. Toast from the local bakery that uses local organic grains (Wild Hive Bakery).
4. Fresh tomatoes & scallions.

I walked past the summer squash row on my way to water the greenhouse, and I couldn't help but notice those poor zucchini that will be too big to be edible by tomorrow. So I picked 116 of them. Just the largest, the ones that would pass us by. I can't stand to see good food wasted.
By 9am I was sweating out of every pore of my body. I was haunted by this feverish dream I had last night, where Farmer Dave & I were walking across the melon field, and every single melon had been cracked in half & eaten by birds. Not a single one, even a tiny one or a flower, was left for us to harvest. I was so sad I woke myself up crying.

So of course I had to go out and remind myself that it was just a dream-- a sigh of relief as I looked over the hundreds of intact green cannonballs lying out there in the sun. I knocked on one close by, and it made the kind of sound a ripe watermelon makes...
So I took a chance... as soon as I got the knife in, the thing popped open, a good sign.
But alas, the seeds are still yellow... a hint of sweetness, but nothing like a melon should be.

I will wait a little longer, and trust the birds to share.

a full cooler

We started harvesting again today at 5:30am. The morning was dark and humid & it was hard to get out of bed. But better to work now though, when it's relatively comfortable outside, than to work in the afternoon swelter. We would harvest for 8 hours, then I could take a cold shower & my beloved after-work siesta!

Lettuce first, since it wilts easiest in the sun. Then beets, since the greens also wilt quickly. Then swiss chard, and lo and behold , 4 volunteers showed up to help us! We were able to pick the entire 400 foot long bed of beans, then harvest & wash up scallions together. Nick went to the onion field to pull up 100 huge onions, and the rest of us picked peppers & eggplants. Sweat was streaming down our faces. We have some dedicated volunteers! There's no way we could have picked so much just by ourselves. The cooler is full to the top:

Of course with all the lettuce in the field and this hot weather, we're getting some varieties that decide to "bolt" (start flowering & turn bitter). It's sad to watch this food that we so carefully planted by seed in the greenhouse, then transplanted on our knees into the field, go to waste. But at least there are some farm members who still enjoy bitter lettuce:

"Thanks, Erin!"

You spoiled things :)

the first...

This morning we started at 5:30am so we could get our work done before the heat of the day. Out in the onion field, moving irrigation pipes, we decided the large areas of fallow ground that Nick just plowed up should be worked some more-- not with the rototiller this time, but with the Disk Harrow. This heavy piece of equipment drags over the ground, pulverizing the clumps of sod left from plowing. The first set of discs throws soil out & the second throws it back. It was my first time disking! Feels sort of like a christening...
We moved irrigation pipe all day, turning on different fields every few hours. The melon field here was decorated with "flash tape" to scare birds away. We had noticed a few melons that had been pecked out by curious crows, but this tape claims to alert their danger-instinct, looking kind of like fire, I guess.
We staked & trellised the last 2 rows of tomatoes-- 800 feet of tomatoes! The straw mulch is doing a good job keeping the moisture in the soil.
The beans are growing fast... on tomorrow's harvest list.
And after work, I took a stroll down to the Sun Gold cherry tomato row, and lo and behold:
Oh, yes. They are here.


And Nick finally got a car (that runs):She's a beauty, ain't she? A generous loan from a CSA member! (Thanks Catherine!)

not waiting for rain

If I were to run a farm without any irrigation besides the weather, I would plant everything just before the raindrops started falling. Unfortunately, we have lots of seeds & plants to get in the ground, and no rain in sight for a week. And 90 degree days. So we plant anyway.

This old "Planet Jr." is pushed right down the row, following the nice straight lines we marked with the Cub tractor. The seeds fall through a hole & get buried in the soil at the (hopefully) ideal spacing. I am seeding carrots here:
The heat radiating off this dry field at noon is pretty intense.
After lunch I set up drip irrigation on all the seeded beds, as well as the lettuce we planted a few days ago. A few hours should be enough, then we have to start irrigating the other fields. A hot week without rain means more work for us-- the artificial rain-makers. Does anyone know a good rain-dancing method?
At least the garlic has benefited from the dry weather. The bulbs should be fully cured by now.
Every time I walk by the melon field I start imagining in my mind how good that first juicy piece is going to be, eaten in the field after a sweaty day of weeding. We cut one open yesterday, but it was just a pale pink inside. A lesson in patience.

celebrating summer

I continue to be amazed by the bounty coming out of the fields these days. Seems like these days we are doing nothing but harvesting... and the produce is getting larger. And more colorful.

This purple cabbage was one of my little projects, started in soil blocks in the greenhouse. Farmer Dave usually doesn't grow the purple variety-- it seems to demand lots of space to grow if you want to get large heads out of it. Some of the heads got large, but some stayed small. Next year I will try spacing them farther apart.

And the onions are getting to the "lunker" stage. Farmer Dave grows several varieties-- these here are harvested for fresh onions, whereas other varieties are grown for storage onions, that will keep for a long time once they are cured.
We wash them up in the field & peel off the outer layers until they shine!
And speaking of shine...
Some of my favorite summer veggies are here-- eggplant & peppers!
This week's share is huge. People will really have to stretch their stomachs for this one. Four heads of lettuce! 3 Eggplants! 2 zucchini and 2 peppers! Giant beets! Cabbage, scallions, onion!
We could hardly fit them in the boxes that we packed for the city distribution.
The winter squash are quickly taking over their field. Which is a good thing-- they will provide a dense shade to prevent weeds from coming up.
Another of my little experiments was okra plants... the variety is "North and South", supposedly growing well up here in the Northeast. The plants are a lot shorter than I remember them being in California, but they sure are producing. Picking them small is the key-- once they get large they are tough to pick and tough to eat. But they get big really fast! I love to eat them raw. But I am also going to try breading and frying them, traditional-style.

Here's me harvesting a beautiful head of purple cabbage:And here's Nick, Johanna, Pam, & I with our first eggplant bounty!
Yesterday Nick & I transplanted 2 rows of lettuce & scallions... we seed lettuce in the greenhouse every week the whole summer so we have a steady supply. It doesn't all mature at a steady rate... sometimes it all is ready at once! (Like this week's distribution of 4 heads)The 3 Sisters Garden is looking beautiful too:

The corn is starting to tassel, the beans are looking to wind, and the squash is thinking about running. And there are sunflowers blooming & magenta amaranth leaves. What a magical place.