Annual Post

I am an annuals grower. This is the time of year that I like to write my annual blog post. I'll just start some blogus vulgaris seed in my new sprouting box and hopefully something will pop up in the next week.

It was a perfect day; I dread the summer.

Today was beautiful and perfect and I had to come inside because it was too nice and I was afraid of getting high on it.

The fog rolled out by midday today after nearly a week of clouds and precipitation. The plants and animals all seemed eager for a more efficient photosynthesis/vitamin D synthesis.

The cover crop is lush.

In less than two weeks it has tripled in height. These plants have plodded on through the winter growing but barely.

Meanwhile, our slightly less hardy crops are starting to fill the field or emerge.



And in the hoop house...
















This is our new rooster, named after a Muppet Show character which I do not remember, who is being taught to tango?

Drainage?

This looks pretty bad.
The beds are running against the slope to prevent wash out. I didn't think they would catch the water so effectively. This is after 2.5 inches in 48 hours.

The Out-of-Shape Farmer

Spring is here?
No, but it is that time of year when I realize that my body has turned to mush over the past couple of months.
I am now at a new farm, yet to be titled, where the vegetable bed making has just begun.



I moved in with Sam in August and we have been scheming since. More than at any other farm I have worked on the task ahead daunts. The motivation is first-class as well.

Most of this field will be in vegetable production this year. Delicious cucumbers are just around the corner.

The farm is just a couple of miles down the road from the Breeze incubator farm. Sam really helped me dig myself out of the weeds and get the most out of my rows this fall and winter. I went to every market held through this past weekend. However, the time has come for the Breeze field to be plowed and we will have a few weeks of lull with nothing to sell.

Marketing!

Starting next week I will be selling at the Orange County Farmer's Market in Hillsborough.
CSA deliveries may need to move to Tuesday.

What a fruitful week! I am now hunting for a second fridge so I can store the abundance that I expect will be coming for the next couple of months.

Our first melons are only two weeks away according to Karen McAdams, one of the Cooperative Extension agents who have put together the incubator program. As long as I keep the plants somewhat weeded it looks like we’ll be eating lots of watermelons and muskmelons (the group of melons to which cantaloupe and honeydew belong). This week we had a bumper crop of cucumbers. The rains were apparently well timed. Of course the squash are still coming on. We also have our first tomatoes ripening. I just stumbled upon the eggplant. I hadn’t even notice flowers on the plants and all of a sudden there were fruits.

Also lots of weeds.

Rain

The rain this week was a very welcome respite from the drought that was as recently as last Wednesday classified as severe by official sources. It was a relief to farmers including those of as at the incubator farm who irrigate out of ponds. We had begun to see the water level of our pond lower over the past few weeks. Most plants seem to do better with a periodic rain in addition to just being irrigated.

That said, the weather and I are not in lockstep. The heavy inundation every evening several days in a row made the ground to wet to till when I had the chance. I am running out of room for the next succession of plantings and I had hoped to open up more space. This will have to wait a little while longer.