Friday, July 30, 2010
Our volunteers disposed of some rotten tomatoes with our super duper slingshot...
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Week 8 Update
We are all hot. Yesterday afternoon it was so hot, we convinced Shiela to stop working in the fields and go for a swim. That is unusual for her. She is typically here working for you every day, all day no mattter what the conditions. A typical work week for her is about 60-70 hours.
In our planning for next year, we have decided to reduce our size again, in a effort to be able to do our laundry and be able to eat some of what we grow. Now there is not enough time for us to cook the things we grow in most instances. For 2011 we will accept only returning members, and reduce our production accordingly. We will not be opening our enrollment to the public. We may, if time permits, supplement our income with part time jobs to cover the loss of income from not farming. We will need to know this fall if you would like us to count on your support for 2011. Our planning for next season is underway, so as soon as you know if you would like to return next year, please let us know.
Bug Report: We still have the usual cucumber beetles, and have been spraying them to try to manage the problem. Last week we sprayed the eggplant to eliminate the potato bugs that were beginning to do damage there. Our squash bug eggs are hatching some more nymphs each day. Every few nights we don a tyvek suit (which is like weearing a hooded trash bag) and spray them with Pyganic, a super expensive pesticide that may or may not kill them. Sometimes I just want to be a conventional farmer, who can kill the squash bugs with no problems. We are so far staying ahead of the problem, but I don't know how long we will be able to keep ahead.
Disease report: Disease season is upon us. Our potatoes were killed by early blight. It shouldn't hurt the potatoes, but the plants are dead and so in the next few weeks we will need to dig out our potatoes. Our tomatoes are stricken with their usual septoria leaf spot. It is a soil borne disease, and we get it every year. Unfortunately there is not much research yet as to how to mitigate the problem. We still should get a nice harvest of tomatoes - we have over a thousand row feet of plants. Our tomatoes also have curly leaf virus. There is no known cure for this ailment either. Our cabbages started to get black rot, and so we harvested them all early. Our kohlrabis are also getting it. You will get those in your share next week.
Wildlife report: The groundhogs continue to sample things from our fields. The have taken bites from cucumbers and summer squash. They mow off lettuce as fast as we can plant it. We are working on reducing their numbers and installing barriers so we can have lettuce again in the fall.
This week we will be planting cabbages, cauliflower, collards, snow peas, and maybe some lettuce. We have some weeding to do also. If you would like to help us any day between 9 am and 5 pm, please let us know. Saturdays and Sundays are usually an option also.
In our planning for next year, we have decided to reduce our size again, in a effort to be able to do our laundry and be able to eat some of what we grow. Now there is not enough time for us to cook the things we grow in most instances. For 2011 we will accept only returning members, and reduce our production accordingly. We will not be opening our enrollment to the public. We may, if time permits, supplement our income with part time jobs to cover the loss of income from not farming. We will need to know this fall if you would like us to count on your support for 2011. Our planning for next season is underway, so as soon as you know if you would like to return next year, please let us know.
Bug Report: We still have the usual cucumber beetles, and have been spraying them to try to manage the problem. Last week we sprayed the eggplant to eliminate the potato bugs that were beginning to do damage there. Our squash bug eggs are hatching some more nymphs each day. Every few nights we don a tyvek suit (which is like weearing a hooded trash bag) and spray them with Pyganic, a super expensive pesticide that may or may not kill them. Sometimes I just want to be a conventional farmer, who can kill the squash bugs with no problems. We are so far staying ahead of the problem, but I don't know how long we will be able to keep ahead.
Disease report: Disease season is upon us. Our potatoes were killed by early blight. It shouldn't hurt the potatoes, but the plants are dead and so in the next few weeks we will need to dig out our potatoes. Our tomatoes are stricken with their usual septoria leaf spot. It is a soil borne disease, and we get it every year. Unfortunately there is not much research yet as to how to mitigate the problem. We still should get a nice harvest of tomatoes - we have over a thousand row feet of plants. Our tomatoes also have curly leaf virus. There is no known cure for this ailment either. Our cabbages started to get black rot, and so we harvested them all early. Our kohlrabis are also getting it. You will get those in your share next week.
Wildlife report: The groundhogs continue to sample things from our fields. The have taken bites from cucumbers and summer squash. They mow off lettuce as fast as we can plant it. We are working on reducing their numbers and installing barriers so we can have lettuce again in the fall.
This week we will be planting cabbages, cauliflower, collards, snow peas, and maybe some lettuce. We have some weeding to do also. If you would like to help us any day between 9 am and 5 pm, please let us know. Saturdays and Sundays are usually an option also.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
Week 6 Update
Greetings from the farm! (Technically, I'm not at the farm. Andy, Ethan and I escaped for a three day weekend to the Poconos.) Shiela stayed at home to take care of your veggies. I have been checking in with her daily, and have been checking on the progress of things. Last week Shiela spent a day at a workshop on how to grow better cucumbers and squash (summer and winter). For the past couple of years we have struggled with squash production. We have been paying close attention to our seeding dates and our transplant dates to ensure they don't get stunted in the pots. We have fertilized them. We have watered them. Still we havent gotten decent yields of squash. It is a shame, since we have many delicious varieties of summer squash selected. It seems as though some of them are actually coming around this year. We will apply some of the techniques described in last week's workshop to see if that will make a difference.
Bugs: The population of squash bugs is reaching the out of control range of tolerance. They are the bane of organic growers all over the nation. Currently there is no control methods that have been approved for organic production. We try anything and everything to keep them away, but every fall we end up with tons of crinkly leaves and more squash bugs than we can kill. The other bug populations are still holding steady.
Diseases: Well our potatoes have early blight. That is different from the late blight that affected so many, including us, last year. Early blight is not as deadly. Estimates are that it will reduce our yields of potatoes by about a third. We should still be in good shape with our harvest. We planted nearly 300 lbs of seed potatoes this year. I am hoping for somewhere around 900 pounds once we do harvest them. Our tomatoes are showing sign of early blight also, so it is good that we planted too many of those as well. I'll keep you updated on the saga of the early blight. We may try to spray an organically approved solution to prevent the spread of the disease. Each year the cucumber meet an early demise, due to the transmission of bacterial wilt from the striped cucumber beetle.
Wildlife: The on farm population of groundhogs was decreased last weekend by nine. Andy was sucessful with his diligent use of the shotgun and .22 over the Fourth of July holiday. We are still hunting them, because they are still eating some crops. They have mowed off nearly every head of summer lettuce that we were going to distribute. They have begun to sample some of our savoy cabbages. We will continue our vigilant stand against them, and hopefully prevail by the time fall lettuce is in full swing. The chipmunk in the greenhouse has been disuaded from eating the transplants before we can plant them out, so hopefully we will beat that one too.
Till next week! Happy eating.
Bugs: The population of squash bugs is reaching the out of control range of tolerance. They are the bane of organic growers all over the nation. Currently there is no control methods that have been approved for organic production. We try anything and everything to keep them away, but every fall we end up with tons of crinkly leaves and more squash bugs than we can kill. The other bug populations are still holding steady.
Diseases: Well our potatoes have early blight. That is different from the late blight that affected so many, including us, last year. Early blight is not as deadly. Estimates are that it will reduce our yields of potatoes by about a third. We should still be in good shape with our harvest. We planted nearly 300 lbs of seed potatoes this year. I am hoping for somewhere around 900 pounds once we do harvest them. Our tomatoes are showing sign of early blight also, so it is good that we planted too many of those as well. I'll keep you updated on the saga of the early blight. We may try to spray an organically approved solution to prevent the spread of the disease. Each year the cucumber meet an early demise, due to the transmission of bacterial wilt from the striped cucumber beetle.
Wildlife: The on farm population of groundhogs was decreased last weekend by nine. Andy was sucessful with his diligent use of the shotgun and .22 over the Fourth of July holiday. We are still hunting them, because they are still eating some crops. They have mowed off nearly every head of summer lettuce that we were going to distribute. They have begun to sample some of our savoy cabbages. We will continue our vigilant stand against them, and hopefully prevail by the time fall lettuce is in full swing. The chipmunk in the greenhouse has been disuaded from eating the transplants before we can plant them out, so hopefully we will beat that one too.
Till next week! Happy eating.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Week 5 Update
Happy 4th of July! I hope you all have an enjoyable weekend. We will be attending a picnic. Yay! We love picnics. We are taking cucumbers and onions as our contribution. What a refreshing side dish. How else can we use up all of these cukes? If you have ideas, please post them as a comment under the cucumber entry of our Eats blog.
On to the brief farm report. We need rain. We haven't had rain in three weeks, and things are beginning to suffer. We are watering most crops with the drip irrigation, and it is keeping them going pretty well. Irrigation is not nearly as good as rain. We don't use drip irrigation on things like potatoes, onions, or corn. We plant far too many rows of these to affort the time to put the tapes down and ensure that they are close enough to the plant to be functional. We are using sprinklers for these three crops this year. It is keeping them alive for now. The onions are soon ready to harvest, so any last bits of moisture we can get into them will make larger bulbs. We are spending a good deal of time fiddling with moving the sprinkler head and turning the irrigation valves on and off. It is taking time away from our fall planting and seeding schedule. Our schedule is always so full that if one thing runs late, it pushes so many other tasks back. Hopefully we will get caught up over the long weekend.
Bugs? Oh yes, we have them. The squash bugs are laying many, many eggs on the spaghetti squash,. They are the most tenacious bug for organic farm to cope with. There is no pesticide approved for organic production that controls them. We do our best and expect to lose a percentage of our crop each year. It seems that they get worse every year. The cucumber beetles are still here, and we are still spraying Pyganic to conrol them. It works for the most part, but needs to be applied about once a week. We still have the other usual critters, and are working on getting their population lowered.
Diseases? We are still looking pretty good on this front. Some of the Chard has shown signs of a leaf spot, but it seems to be rather limited.
Wildlife? It is like a baby animal zoo here. We discovered those four baby raccoons last week. This week Andy has begun the official War on Groundhogs. We have at least 30 on our property and many of them are babies. So far this weekend the score is Andy 3, Groundhogs 0. Yay Andy! Someday we will be able to grow fennel and lettuce that is beautiful again.
I think next week we will begin to pick green beans. We will also try to get the rest of the fall cabbages planted, and maybe some of the annual herbs that I want to give out like dill and caraway. remember if you would like to help out, please let us know. We are able to accept help every day from about 9 to about 5. Have a great week!
On to the brief farm report. We need rain. We haven't had rain in three weeks, and things are beginning to suffer. We are watering most crops with the drip irrigation, and it is keeping them going pretty well. Irrigation is not nearly as good as rain. We don't use drip irrigation on things like potatoes, onions, or corn. We plant far too many rows of these to affort the time to put the tapes down and ensure that they are close enough to the plant to be functional. We are using sprinklers for these three crops this year. It is keeping them alive for now. The onions are soon ready to harvest, so any last bits of moisture we can get into them will make larger bulbs. We are spending a good deal of time fiddling with moving the sprinkler head and turning the irrigation valves on and off. It is taking time away from our fall planting and seeding schedule. Our schedule is always so full that if one thing runs late, it pushes so many other tasks back. Hopefully we will get caught up over the long weekend.
Bugs? Oh yes, we have them. The squash bugs are laying many, many eggs on the spaghetti squash,. They are the most tenacious bug for organic farm to cope with. There is no pesticide approved for organic production that controls them. We do our best and expect to lose a percentage of our crop each year. It seems that they get worse every year. The cucumber beetles are still here, and we are still spraying Pyganic to conrol them. It works for the most part, but needs to be applied about once a week. We still have the other usual critters, and are working on getting their population lowered.
Diseases? We are still looking pretty good on this front. Some of the Chard has shown signs of a leaf spot, but it seems to be rather limited.
Wildlife? It is like a baby animal zoo here. We discovered those four baby raccoons last week. This week Andy has begun the official War on Groundhogs. We have at least 30 on our property and many of them are babies. So far this weekend the score is Andy 3, Groundhogs 0. Yay Andy! Someday we will be able to grow fennel and lettuce that is beautiful again.
I think next week we will begin to pick green beans. We will also try to get the rest of the fall cabbages planted, and maybe some of the annual herbs that I want to give out like dill and caraway. remember if you would like to help out, please let us know. We are able to accept help every day from about 9 to about 5. Have a great week!
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