Weekly update week 2

Whew! We made it through the first week of pick ups with the new traffic pattern and through this last series of Rain. Now that we are drying out we will focus on pulling all the weeds that are overtaking most of our fields. If you would like to help with that, let Amy know.

Before the rains came we planted the first round of corn planted and all of the beans - green, yellow, purple, and lima. I expect to see sprouts in the next day or two. We have never done well with early corn since the Japanese beetles are usually out and about when it is pollinating and they eat all the corn silks off. (In case you didn't know, the silk carries pollen from the tassel to the kernel and only then will the kernel form. No silk, no pollination. No pollination, no fruit.) We are tired of trying to grow early corn only to yield a bunch of empy cobs. Our cucumbers have some blossoms, and are looking good. The tomatoes are doing well, and are sporting blossoms also. They are really starting to grow really fast. We must get our tomato stakes in this week. Today we planted more summer squash plants. The last round that we put in were transplanted from starts that we sowed in the greenhouse. They seemed to be doing poorly, so we are going to the old standby of planting seeds directly in the garden. I think it will work much better, and can't wait till I can have some summer squash. Our watermelons should be planted out this week, and if all goes well we will put out our potatoes. Usually we plant them really early and by now the potato bugs are eating off all of the leaves. I think that by waiting, we could miss the majority of the bugs and wind up with many beautiful late potatoes.

All of the spring crops are doing very well. The bugs are a bit annoying (slugs and flea beetles in particular), but the moderate temperatures have helped the cabbages and broccoli grow beautifully. This has been the best pea season in many years. The shell peas will be ready in a week or two and I suspect that we will all be tired of shelling them.

I posted a poll about lima beans on the right side of the blog. Please take it. My mom and I have always disagreed on the popularity of lima beans, and you can settle it for us (at least for this year). I can't wait to see the results. See you around the farm!

On Monday evening, after he got home from work, Andy was able to rototill some of the beds we will use for our tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and basil.

On Tuesday, after planting 1,000 chard plants with Isaac (he volunteers here each morning), Shiela worked at laying the plastic that we will plant those crops into. We are trying a red plastic this year for our tomatoes. Research has shown that the red reflects the spectrums of light needed to ripen more fruits. So far we like the black plastic better. It is easier to lay. The red is thin and tears easily. We'll see what the tomatoes think.

Wednesday we finished up the plastic for tomatoes, and planted a bunch of them. Ethan even helped! We got about halfway through that when darkeness came and made us stop. The rains have kept us out of the field since then. I hope this pattern breaks soon. We have alot to plant in our fields, and I was hoping to get it all planted before the soil warms too much and the weeds really get growing.

Thursday Shiela seeded lettuces for the summer and transplanted a few straggler cabbages and kohlrabis, shile I ran to get some last minute supplies to prepare for our first pick ups of the season.

Today (because our fields are too wet and sticky to get into) we will work on the herb garden and transplant some of the perenials from what I thought would be a nice bed near our house. It is an overgrown grassy mess, and it gets worse every year. We are making a patch of flowers near our pick up area with landscape cloth that was left over from the floor of our greenhouse. I can't wait to have flowers that we can see!