Happy Summer Solstice!

Well, all our transplants are now in the ground. We planted out all of our tomatoes, our second round of cucumbers and melons, and our greenhouse is pretty much empty!! We have finally had some hot days on the farm; we had one weekend where it was in the mid-80's. The heat is great for sun loving crops, like tomatoes. A lot of our tomatoes were quite pot bound and nutrient deprived once we FINALLY got them in the field. They were turning purple, which is a sign of potassium deficiency. Potassium is released from the soil once it heats up, which has now happened. Our early girls, mortgage lifters, and all our other varieties are looking very healthy and happy. We do not expect to have a tomato on the farm until mid to late August, but at least they are looking much happier now.

Our tomatoes have now been staked, we are just tying them all up to the stakes. The system seems to be working good so far, but the real test well be when the plants are weighed down with fruit!


The staked tomatoes.


Our cucumbers from the first round have been staked too.

We have been direct-seeding into the field now for a month. A lot of people find it interesting that we plant every week, all through the growing season. This is very different from home gardening. On a farm, you must always have a fresh product for market. Every week we plant: lettuce (several varieties), filet beans (until mid-July), turnips, cress, spinach, mustard greens (3 varieties), and beets (3 varieties). Every other week we plant bush beans (3 varieties), dill, chervil, cilantro, carrots (rainbow), arugula, rucola, and radishes. We will continue this planting schedule until about mid-august, when we start seeding our winter crops. You have to get the winter crops in early so they have time to grow to a decent size before the days are too short and the weather is to cool.

Some of our crops that we planted on June 5th (our first planting) are almost ready to sell. We hope that by the end of next week we can take the restaurants some cress, mustard greens, arugula, kale, herbs, and possibly chard. I think at this point Brian and I will fell like we have really accomplished something!


Our first seeding into the field is growing!!

Other news around the farm: We got three new little hens on the 9th. They are only 2 months old and are very cute. We picked out a Welsummer (lays dark brown eggs), a Rhode Island Red, and a Ameracauna (lays green/blue eggs). They seem to be getting along with the older hens/rooster, but not really hanging out with them. They will not being laying until September.



Brian has been doing some fishing at the pond and has landed some very large bass (2 pounders), some of which we ate. Hanging out at the pond after working in the sun all day is the perfect way to end the day!

Transplanting like crazy!

Well, its been a while since the last post since things have been very busy around here. We got the field disced the second time on around the 15th. After the second disk, we realized that we were going to need a rototiller since the soil here is fairly clayey and did not break up as much as we would of liked. We rented one on the 16th, since it was supposed to rain on the 17th. We worked until 11pm, but we got it all rototilled before the rains came! The soil looked much better in most spots, but there were still some areas that had fairly large clumps of clay.


Brian, driving our tractor with the rototiller attachment we rented


On the left, the soil has been rototilled; you can see the difference from the soil on the right, which has not.

We planted a quarter of our field in black eyed peas, which we are using as a cover crop. A cover crop is simply a crop that covers your field, helps block out weeds, increases soil fertility (especially nitrogen), helps prevent soil erosion, and breaks up soil. We are planning to leave the cover crop in the field until August, when it is time to put pumpkin/winter squash transplants into the field.

We started transplanting into the field by the 24th, but it was slow going in spots because of those clay clumps. Well, nature was on our side this time and sent us just over a half inch of rain on the 25th. We realized after this rain, that our spader (the closest thing we have to a tractor) broke up the soil very nice after it had been "re-soaked". We have a BCS rototiller with a Tortella spader, which works up the soil very well; it is quite the beast though! We have now spaded 1/2 the field, and most of it looks great. For the spots that still have clay clumps, we bought some agricultural lime, which is 100% natural and organic. The lime helps to break up those clay clumps.


Brian using the spader to work in the lime in a rather clayey spot!

We have transplanted a lot into the field now. We just planted out our first round of cucumbers (4 varieties) and Melons (2 varieties), along with a ton of cauliflower, kale, chard, and two of our four varieties of tomatoes. We also did our first succession of direct seeding in the field. We will we planting certain things, like lettuce and spinach, once a week, all through the summer to ensure we always have a fresh supply for the restaurants. We should hopefully be selling vegetables to the restaurants in a month.


Our 500 early girl tomato tranplants


Mary, working on transplanting.

We have had some help getting all this stuff done. A cook from one of the restaurants has been coming three days a week and Brian's cousin will start coming several times a week also!! We could not do it without some help.

Other news around the farm........
The chickens are doing great! Our rooster is healthy and crowing all day long and our hen has been broken from her broodiness. We are now getting about three eggs a day. Brian and I are both starting to feel like real farmers. We have definitely learned that you have to watch the weather and learn to just "roll with it". It is humbling to be at the mercy of nature, but also very refreshing. This May, we have received 1.6" of rain, which is about an inch over average May rainfall! This is good for a state that has been in a drought the last three years.