FARM NEWS 7.11.10

A little rain has finally touched down on the farm. The lack of rain was especailly worrisome with the high temps we saw last week. We do use drip irrigation for tomatoes and watermelons, but everything else depends on rain. When it does rain, we try to go out and cultivate the soils around the crops for moisture retention and killing weeds. But cultivation for moisture retention (creating a dust mulch around the plants) only buys us a week or two before the next rains. So four weeks without rain can be stressful on plants, especially if they haven't rooted yet. And stressful on plants is stressful on farmer. So, anyway, thank goodness for the 1/4 inch of rain we got on Saturday. Hopefully there's more on the way to seal the deal.

This week on the farm: Garlic harvest! Thursday we'll be pulling up the garlic we planted last fall as cloves, now fully developed into bulbs. Anyone interested can come help Thursday afternoon at 2, weather permitting...It looks to be a sizeable crop- I would expect we'll need most of the day to do it. Also this week, three days of harvesting all the other vegetables for the CSA and farmers markets, and one day to transplant brussell's sprouts, cabbages, fennel, lettuces; also a day to hoe fall carrots, eggplants, chard. We've got a tall order this week, especially with our apprentices off to visit Bloomingfields Farm on Monday afternoon. Somehow, amazingly, we manage to get done what needs done, and the food keeps pouring in.
Here's the approximate harvest:
Sweet Onions, Carrots, Beets, Thyme, Basil, Chard, Broccolli, Zucchini, cabbage, Kale, SaladMix/Arugula, Eggplant?