June 28th Update

This last week saw our temperatures shoot up, wayyy up, into the 30 celcius range. The plants, long starved for heat, responded by growing like mad. Here's tomatos,
Broccoliand Eggplants,All tripled in size, with April's little foot thrown in for scale.
We planted another 8 beds of succession crops, here I am holding the seed drill,

We finished building the production "line" and 8x8 walk in cooler. Then we tryed them both out on wednesday and took some early greens to the Country Market.
Our First CSA drop date is for this coming Wednesday, July 1st. It looks like our first share will include ......

1. Green Onions
2. Spinach
3. Greens
4. Radishes
5. Joi Choi
6. Kale
7. Bread
8. Eggs

After all the work of the last months, its at last time to Harvest!!!

June 20th Update

Last night we finished putting in the last of the 6079 transplants! Our sore backs are glad that job is over. Now the entire mulched acre is planted. It features: 2 types of broccoli, 2 types of melons, 2 types of eggplant, Kohlrabi, 4 kinds of tomatoes, pie pumpkins, 3 types of peppers, Joi-Choi, Cauliflower, celery, kale, celeriac, 2 kinds of cabbage, Brussels sprouts, basil, cilantro, rosemary, parsley, 2 kinds of cucumber, 4 types of wintrer squash, 4 types of summer squash and yellow onions. All told this job took 180 person hours to complete!
The warmth of the last week has really helped the direct seeded garden to thrive, we now have 36 beds planted, with more going in every day! Also of note our daily work hours has started to shift down a few notches, from 14- 16 hours a day in May and early June, to 12 hours two weeks ago, this last week we were down to 10 hour days!
This last pic is thanks to our youngest. The first toad of the year was photograped "in action" and released after. Toads are a welcome sign of summer, we usually have dozens living in the garden over the season. They are an excellent organic solution to insect pests, and a good indicator of biodiversity on the farm. With the forcast for more warmth this week, its safe to say we have at last arrived in early summer.

June 12th update

This has been a brutally cold spring, frosts have fallen several times, killing off many of our friends and neighbors transplants. On balance the first 10 days of this month have been 10 degrees lower than average. Daytime highs of 12 to 15 and nighttime lows of around freezing have really kept the veggies from developing. The cool earth has meant that germination has been agonizingly slow. Still, in the last few days things have started warming up a little, and at last the plants are beginning to grow.The onions are doing great, while spinach and lettuce mix have their first true leaves.
Here a recently sprouted golden beet is peeking up.
Head lettuce transplants are starting to put out new growth,
Like this red romaine.
The leafy greens under row cover are up and seem to be handling the flea beetles okay,
Corn just started coming up today,
Peas, a cool season favorite are doing well despite the temperatures.
Kale, another cold hardy transplant, has been growing since it went in last week.
Our tomatoes, peppers and herbs are hardening off before we transplant them, hopefully tomorrow or the next day.
The forecast is looking good, fingers-crossed, hopefully the plants can make up for lost time, as our first delivery date is set for the evening of July 1st!

Kids in the Field

We had visiting field hands arrive last friday from an intercity school in town. They came to learn about how we work the land, and to help too! We head down to the plastic mulch garden.After a quick lesson in how we're going to transplant, we start firing the norstar gold onions in!
The process goes like this: I punch the hole through the plastic at the right distance with the transplanter. One kid drops a pinch of kelp meal down the tube, another drops a pinch of bonemeal. Then with one kid holding a tray of onions, two more children pull 4 plugs out of the tray and drop them down the tube.
Lastly a group of 3 or 4 people cover and set the plugs. In one hour we`ve planted 1200 transplants!!
The kids have lunch and then back on the bus to the city. Everybody had a good time, and the kids have had an experience that they`ll remember for awhile.

Frost Alert!

I've been up all night watching the weather in case things go bad in a hurry. With thermomoters in both the garden and on the deck for measurement, the temperature has been falling, but suddenly it really starts dropping and at 2:30 AM frost is already forming on raised surfaces and the temperature has plunged 5 degrees in the last hour. The weather service is calling for a "hard Freeze", death to all new transplants, even cold hardy ones like those we just planted.
Gotta cover the plants!!!!
April wakes up at the sound of a commotion, and together we head out into the chilly night air.A little extra plastic is on the roll, using the car and tractor headlights we work covering the 5 330 foot rows.


By 4 am the job is done, the frost is falling around us, but the sprouts are safe.
This is called exhaustion. Wake up at 6 Am, plant, water, till and organize until 10 PM, then watch the weather and get a quick meal, work though the night and finally in bed at 5 AM
The 23 hour workday!

2600 Transplants!!!!!!!!

Today with the Help of the "Dream Team", we planted 2600 transplants in the plastic mulch garden. It took seven hours with 7 of us working steady to get it done, but by this evening the cabbage, kohlrabi, brussel sprouts, broccoli, kale, joi choi and romaine was in the ground.
Ready to face tonight's frost warning.
Yikes!



Thanks to Chris, Bobbi, Dave, Nathan and Brad for helping April and I out today. It made all the difference.