Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Great weather--finally!

Well, at long last, we finally got some cool, sunny weather.  By cool I mean mid-70s, which is still warm, but much more tolerable than the weather of late.  Not only is it more pleasurable to work in, but we can finally do some of those jobs that require dry conditions, like seeding, tilling the soil, trellising tomatoes, transplanting, and some types of weeding.

On Field Tour this Monday, I noted some changes the farm had been through in two weeks.  The peas were all producing abundantly, while the broccoli has started to bolt.  The flowers have started to bloom, the clover, oats, and peas have been mowed down, the tomatoes already look bushy.  The tomatillos look poised to burst, and the basil is thriving.  The weeds are in flux as usual; some areas were clean, others contain sprouting weeds, while others haven't been weeded and are in danger of becoming the primary crop.



Monday we came up with the CSA Delivery, which includes lettuce, chard, basil or mint, snow peas, sugar snap peas, and shell peas, kohlrabi, summer squash, scallions, and possibly broccoli.  This takes up much of our time now.  We only have a few hours in the afternoon to do any maintenance work on the farm.



Picking peas has become the bane of our existence.  We spend four hours of each day, with at least 8 people, picking peas.  Other CSA farms do You-Pick Peas, so the customers can do all of the labor.  The drawback of that is that they only get picked once, so the peas won't produce as much.  Also, I doubt all the members of any given CSA get trained well on what is and isn't a ripe pea.  We get trained every time we go out there to pick, which is Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays.  So our peas are the best, ripest, fullest, sweetest peas you can find.  But they do take time!  We sell them for $4/lb, which is roughly twice what you'd pay for them elsewhere, but they are worth it, and more!

Other notable tasks we are doing this week (other than the obvious, weeding) are seeding clover between the winter squash for next year's cover crop, and trellising tomatoes.  We need to get those done soon, because they love the rain just as much as the next plant and are not waiting around for us to finish the trellis before they start fruiting.  Let's hope the weather keeps cooperating with us until we get it done.

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