Weeds, new crops, weeds, exotic cucumbers, weeds, tomato pruning, weeds, missing pumpkins, weeds, tractor breakdown, weeds, slugs, weeds, dragonflies, weeds
Once again almost two weeks of activity has blurred by without an entry here. The weeds are growing fast, new crops are now ready for sale, we continue to prepare for developing crops, and we are also add new features to the farm. I decided to refuse to do much of anything physical Sunday and Tuesday (July 4) in order to recuperate for continued activity. The crew & I did work Monday, so we had 5 workdays this week. After a few somewhat cooler days, the high temperatures are back.
We’ve started picking lots of new crops since my last entry. The blueberry crop is coming in. All five of our summer squash varieties are producing well. We have been picking cabbages for a couple of weeks and started picking the red cabbage this week. This week we also started picking the purple and the orange cauliflowers in addition to the standard white cauliflower. The Napa cabbage is now heading up enough to pick.
Our first cauliflower crop.
We are starting to see a few mature cucumbers in the hoophouses. I’ve picked a several of the Miniature White and two of the Poona Keeras. The Miniature Whites look and taste like a good pickling cuke, except that the skin is near-white. The Poona Keera cucumbers turn russet brown when ready to eat. I expect I’ll have to work extra hard on training the crew on picking these ones. The taste is refreshing. I’m still trying to figure out how to describe the slightly sticky or gelatinous mouthfeel.
The Marionberries are turning purple. I expect to start picking next week.
We still have a crew of extra workers. We are trying to get ahead of the weeds, which are thriving in the heat. We did get a lot of the mowing done before the farmstand opened, but since then it has been pretty much non-stop weeding, so we never got the north and west ends mowed.
Meanwhile, we have been setting up the trellis lines in the hoophouses for the tomatoes. John finished the first tying and pruning of the hoophouse tomatoes today, just a bit behind schedule. We set up the trellis lines differently this year, working for more air movement through the plant foliage. I'll try for a photo that shows what we are doing and write more later.
We are also trellising the cucumbers differently this year. Last year we tried the same twine system as for the tomatoes, but the cucumber vines soon overwhelmed the twine and we ended up with wall-to-wall cucumber vines on the hoophouse floor. This year we are trying two fence-type trellises in the hoophouses. So far the 2-inch chicken wire is cheaper but the 4x8 ft wire panel looks superior overall. These panels are sold at hardware stores for placing in concrete while pouring slabs. We use the long rolls for our pea trellis. It would have been a good thing to get them in a week or two earlier, but there were more urgent things to do then.
On Tuesday June 27, the day after my last entry we headed out to weed the big field where we planted most of our fancy pumpkins, pie pumpkins and many of our miniature pumpkins. I had been checking on progress from the east end of the field, and the plants seemed to be doing ok. I got the crew started and went away on some other task. When I came back I was dismayed to see that a quarter or so of the plants at the far end of the field were entirely missing. I'm thinking it is mostly the pie pumpkins and some of the minature pumpkins. My much anticipated Winter Luxury Pie pumpkin was planted in a different field. I haven't had the heart to do a careful survey to see exactly what is missing. I still have hope that we have at least some of every variety. We have several pumpkin & squash fields, and we have expanded our planting from last year, so I'm thinking we'll end up with at least as much or more as we had last year.
This is the first time we’ve used this field. The field was surrounded by tall grass to the north and to the west. My first thought was slugs, which seem to be more prevalent this year, although losses due to slugs have been in the few percent range before. Brian suggested deer, possibly bedding in the tall grass in the northwest corner. I did find some trampled paths through the grass, but no signs of a long-term deer residence. We have had many deer visits, so it could have been a deer passing though. In any case, slugs or deer or some other critter, I decided mowing the tall grass near the field was a priority.
Rob got the west edge mowed. After a couple of passes along the north edge the John Deere tractor hydraulics stopped working. After we poked around a bit to convince ourselves there was nothing obvious Rob called the John Deere shop for advice. The mechanic suggested changing the hydraulic fluid and filters. This tractor has a cut out when the pressure falls below a certain value. After purchasing the fluid and filters, Rob made the change. Still no hydraulics. We decided to haul the tractor to the shop and let them make it right. We got the call today that we need to replace the hydraulic pump. We hope to get the tractor back next Wed or Thurs. Meanwhile, the 1953 Ford 8N tractor is pulling all the hayrides and doing some other jobs, but we are definitely missing the big tractor.
Chef Brian gave me an update on his experiment using paper as a weed block. Early on he really liked not having the weeds to pull. However, he has found vast numbers of slugs living under the paper. He picked up half a bucket full of slugs when he pulled back one row of paper. His next project is to pull out all the paper. He did get a lot of dripline layed out this week, so his time spent watering will be reduced. I'm thinking part of the slug problem is due to the fact that Brian laid the paper by hand on a fairly rough surface. This left a lot of room between the soil and the paper. Perhaps a better match of paper to soil surface would be less attractive to the slugs.
Today we weeded the pole beans, the outdoor tomatoes & peppers, the eggplants, and much of the summer squash. The bean seedings came up well this year. I always look forward to fresh green beans, definitely one of my favorite vegetables.
Jaime & Juan have been building an animal enclosure near the north farmstand location. Next week we’ll move some of the goats & ducks down from the Ranch. The Farm Tots program leaders have been agitating for us to get the animals down to the farm but first I wanted to put up a fence to keep out the coyotes. This week’s Farm Tots program featured insects on the farm. In honor of that I’m posting two dragonfly pictures I took recently.
I don’t see many red dragonflies at the farm. This one was resting on a signpost by the broccoli.
This dragonfly got into one of the hoophouses and couldn’t find its way back out. I got it to perch on my hand and snapped a photo while it was resting.
In addition to the corn maze we have lots more weeding to do. The worst areas are the melons, the onions & leeks, & the school tour pumpkins, and then we’ll start the weeding rounds all over again, and maybe catch up on the mowing. I also want to get some fallow fields sown with a cover crop. We'll be working six days again next week.
What’s playing today in the Jeep CD player? Rare Air – Hard to Beat