Week 1 Update

We hope you all had a very enjoyable Memorial Day weekend. We did lots of farm work and had a quick picnic with our family. It was a relaxing time.

Earlier in the week, we were beginning to worry about the dry spell that we were having. We had been running our sprinkler on the corn to try to get it to germinate well. We havent used a sprinkler in the past, so it has been somewhat experimental. It seems very effective, though it doesn't conserve as much moisture as using drip irrigation. We often have trouble with keeping the drip irrigation in place until the crop that we are watering emerges from the soil enough to keep the tapes in place. So we sprinkled and hoped for rain. And did we ever get it. Thursday evening we got 2.5" of rain and then Friday night we got another 1.25" along with pea sized hail. It has drizzled on and off throughout the weekend so far, which is just keeping it wet enough that we can't really get in the fields to pull weeds. We feel like we are getting behind on planting some of the late summer crops like spaghetti squash and watermelons. We are finishing the tomato planting today.

One bad thing happened last week. We discovered that the housing develpment being built adjacent to us has increased the deer pressure on our crops. Sunday night they mowed down 400 feet of freshly planted lettuce, one being a variety of enormous oakleaf and the other was our virgin attempt at a red leaf type that is amazingly pink and green instead of the usually ruddy bronze. We will definitely try that one again. They didn't disturb some of the other varieties that we had planted. We covered the older rows with deer fencing and that seems to be preventing further damage. We are investigating methods of erecting simple deer fencing that will protect our entire garden. The deer are sampling some of the crops that we haven't covered.

Bug Report: We have seen a decrease in the flea beetle population. We still have our cole crops covered tight, and the heat doesn't seem to be overtaking anything yet. Once the flea beetle pressure subsides we will remove the covers and let the plants get more energy from the sun. The Colorado Potato Bugs are increasing in numbers in our potato field, and we will keep watching them closely. Once they are a problem we will spray them with an organically approved pesticide.

Disease Report: so far so good as far as the plants go. Shiela mostly kicked her cold, and is getting back into the swing of things.

Wildlife Report: We have already mentioned the deer. We have seen some Chimney Swifts flying about in the evenings. A Baltimore Oriole has been dining on mulberries near our shed. It seems as though a Killdeer might be nesting near our fields. We always seem to disturb them when we go out to our farthest field. Killdeer nested on our farm when I was a little girl, and we hadn't seen them in many years. It is nice to have them back. Eastern Kingbirds have made a few brief appearances. They usually sit on the posts of the tomato fence, so I anticipate their return once we get the posts pounded in. They are excellent at catching flying insects. Groundhog babies have been spotted a few times. Hopefully they will stay away from our sweet corn. We might put up an electric fence to deter both deer and groundhogs.

This week it is our goal to weed the kohlrabi and the flowers, plant lima beans, more flowers, and some of our dahlias. We will also seed a few more fall cabbages.