Alas. The beginning of prose posts for 2010.

Oh, there is so much to tell you all. We have been working on getting your shares to you since the seeds arrived in February. The weather has been more cooperative this season than in the past few years, though I was beginning to wonder if the snow would melt in time to plant potatoes and onions. It did eventually. April was just the best April that I can remember. We were able to get our usual crops planted like onions, potatoes, peas, carrots, kale, cabbage, broccoli, lettuce, radishes, pak choy, and endive. We even had enough days without rain to get our beets, chard and spinach planted. The above average temperatures made us think that we might even get ahead of schedule (something that would thrill me to no end). The onions popped right up and grew so fast, I feared that they might be too big to give out as scallions as we usually do for the first six weeks of our season. May has been a different story altogether. Temperatures have been at least 10 degrees cooler than normal for most of it. All the crops that we had planted and had seemed to show such amazing promise in April, hunkered down to bear the 30's and 40's of early May. And I mean hunkered down. The earth holds heat better than air, so for that string of nights when we all thought about adding blankets back to the bed or turning on some heat, the lettuces tried to squat low to the earth to gain as much heat from it as they could. We did cover them with row cover which seemed to help a bit, but they are still smaller than I would like to see at this time of year. The cabbages and their relatives (kale, broccoli, pak choy, mizuna, radishes, kohlrabi) are doing very well. This is perfect weather for them. This is April weather, frankly. I want to be sure to check the average temperatures for this May and compare them to the normal for April.

Many people are asking me when we will host our first pick up, and as of today, I can't say exactly. I had planned for it to be the first week of June, but if our lettuce doesn't shape up, I may push it back a week. Other farms are reporting the same delays in their crops, and one has pushed its first drop date back two weeks. We will try to speed things up with fertilizer. It may be that the heavy rains we keep getting have leached some of the nutrients down beyond the reach of the plant's roots. I will apply a bit of nitrogen this week in hopes to wake them up a bit. I'll keep you posted on the progress on this front.

Onto the Bug Report... We had a severe infestation of flea beetles on our pak choy, which we had left uncovered for a few days - silly mistake. Those beetles like pak choy more than any person I know. We sprayed them Pyganic, a pesticide that is derived from chrysanthemums and is approved for organic growers. They either died or left the pak choy plants, and then we placed row cover over our crop to keep the beetles away. That has worked beautifully. The outer leaves of your pak choy might have a few holes, but the centers are beautiful. The other crops in the field that are usually plagued by insect damage are also row-covered, so for now cabbage worms are not a problem either. The greenhouse is a different story. The eggplants that are growing in the greenhouse until they are big enough for us to plant them outside were targeted by the flea beetles and suffered some damage. We covered the plants in the greenhouse and then they got too hot. Some even got burned. The Colorado Potato beetles also found the eggplant and are trying to lay eggs under their leaves. We have been picking these off by hand. Monday I will move the plants outside and put row cover over them. That should help them to rally back.

The Disease Report...So far we have no diseases in our crops. Shiela currently has a yucky cold/fever that Ethan had last week. She has missed two days of work so far, and we hope that she can kick it soon so we can plant your cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, and summer squash this week.

Wildlife report...We have noticed many interesting migratory birds on our property including, a Hermit Thrush, a Yellow-rumped Warbler, a pair of Blackpoll Warblers, some Prairie Warblers, and the usual Cedar Waxwings who only come for the under ripe mulberries. As of yesterday, I noticed that many of the European Starlings have fledged from their nest and lots of other birds are still building nests. There were a pair of Eastern Bluebirds in the yard last week, and hopefully they will find an appropriate place to raise a family. Within the next few years it is my hope to put up a bluebird trail around our fields for insect control. The group of deer that we saw over the winter are still around, and though they are making holes in our plastic mulch, they aren't eating our crops. I am grateful for that. They do walk through our fields a lot and have stepped on a few plants here and there. I do not want to have to erect a deer fence, because that may deter insect eating birds. We will monitor this all closely. A few groundhogs have been spotted near the region that we wish to plant our sweet corn. We will be setting traps to eliminate these corn lovers ASAP.

This week it is our goal to: plant cucumbers, zucchini, some tomatoes, and peppers; plant our first round of sweet corn to harvest in August; finish laying the plastic mulch so we can plant more tomatoes, watermelons, sweet potatoes, and a few other hot weather lovers. We also will weed the peas, cabbages, broccoli, kale, and chard. Mom will transplant lettuce into bigger cells so we can let that grow bigger before planting it in the field, and probably seed some of our fall cabbage crops.

Week 3 already

The new traffic pattern seems to be working out thanks to all of you showing courtesy to your fellow members. Thank you all. After too many days of rain last week, I tried to order some stones in an effort to reduce the levels of mud in our lane, the parking area, and the new exit. The conversation between the scale master at the quarry and I went rather badly. After telling the grumpy lady that I wasn't going to buy stones from such a snotty person, and hanging up on her (it was warranted, I promise) I remembered that she was the most affordable quarry around. I just can't wait to call her back this week...

On a more professional note, the crops are growing great guns. We have some little tomatoes. They are tiny, but in another month or so, we should start to see some luscious fruits. The peppers are in blossom. Cucumbers are a good week away (though they have cucumber beetles worse than I have ever seen them). Some broccoli has begun to form tiny heads (we will watch for that %$#& tarnished plant bug that chews off the tops of all the florets leaving brown nubs for us). Some cabbages are starting to head up (some got lost in the grass that grew during the last period of rains). The kohlrabi patch is big and great looking thanks to Howard weeding it last weekend. And most importantly our corn is out of the ground and looking pretty good. One last thing to warn you about - shell peas. It is looking like we are going to have plenty of shell peas. We will show you how to shell them if you don't know how. Maybe I'll figure out how to post a video here...

We got behind last week with all the rains. There are many lettuces that need to be planted. Our flowers for the beneficial insects are ready to be planted. Some potatoes need to go in. Our onions and leeks are in desperate need of weeding. Bug pressure is lower than in past years, so far (weed pressure is going way up though). This week we will begin our seeding for our fall plantings, and we don't want to lose our spring and summer crops during that time. This coming Saturday we will have a working (weeding) Saturday from 8-10:30 am, but if you want to come during the week instead, let Amy know. The sooner we uncover the plants, the better for them.