This was a great week for farmin’! With the nice weather at the end of the week we got a lot done. With the exception of our sweet potatoes (don’t get me started on the sweet potatoes), everything has been transplanted into the field. That’s not to say we are done transplanting for the year. We transplant a bunch of cool season crops (e.g. broccoli) in the summer for fall harvest. However all current plants have been transplanted so the greenhouse is empty!
Ok, about those sweet potatoes. We decided to try growing sweet potatoes in our hoop house this season. The hoop house is an unheated, greenhouse structure. Its purpose is to prolong the growing season. By providing a covering for the crops we can typically add a couple of weeks onto each end of the growing season. That may not seem like a lot but it allows us to get some of the warm season crops out earlier and stick around later. It also provides an extra level of insurance for those crops that are marginal here in Minnesota. Sweet potatoes fall into the latter category.
So I purchased sweet potato slips (that’s what they call the plants) back in February. The company I purchased them from allowed me to select a delivery date for the slips. Seeing as we were putting them inside I chose May 1st as my delivery date. Well May first came and went and I never saw the slips. I contacted the company and was told next week maybe but she’d have to check with the owner and get back to me. Well I never heard back so I contact them again the next week. I was told they should go out next week. The next week when I asked if they shipped I was told no but we are definitely on for next week and I will be contacted when they ship.
By now we are getting close to the time when the slips are worthless to us. Sweet potatoes need 100+ frost free days. And the days have to be in a row, none of this 90 days with a couple frosty days followed by another 12 frost-free days. So looking at the calendar June 4th is about 100 days from where we typically have a frost here at the farm. My slips are sitting in a truck at FedEx as we speak. I don’t understand how a company who is in the business of growing plants doesn’t understand the urgency to have the plants delivered in a timely manner to give them enough time to grow. They seem concerned about not sending the plants too early – they want you to receive them after the temperature is sufficiently warm in your area – but they don’t get the other end of the equation.
Even more frustrating to me is that our hoop house – the most expensive growing area we have – has been sitting empty for the last month and a half. We’ve lost five weeks of growing season on a crop that is marginal to grow here as it is. Very frustrating.
So we have to be hopeful for a late frost this year or we’ve completely wasted a whole growing season for our hoop house. Suffice it to say we won’t be doing business with this company in the future. Our plan is if we are successful enough, given the difficult position the company put us in, we will grow our own slips next season. Sometimes Mother Nature isn’t your most difficult problem…
A couple announcements:
We are in need of a cheap (free is the best kind of cheap), reliable chest freezer. Reliability is the most important attribute. We run it only five weeks per year so it doesn’t have to be the most energy efficient model. Let me know if you have one, what you would charge us and what its capacity is.
We have Salmon for sale. We have some wild, line-caught, Coho salmon left over from last season’s SalmonShare. It has been kept frozen and is still delicious. Sales price is $15/lb. Let me know if you are interested!
We still have Eggs for sale.
I sent out pick-up instructions for all but our “near 3M” drop site. (We should have those out to you later this week once the document has been reviewed by the new drop site). For non-near-3M drop site members, if you didn’t receive pick-up instructions please let me know and I will look into it.
MeatShare started this past week. We have a few people who have not yet picked up their share. Please contact me to schedule a time.
We are still taking orders for everything but seafood. By everything I mean veggies, cheese, eggs (though we only have one share left so first one gets it), fruit, coffee, flowers, meat and winter. We can prorate the MeatShare if anyone wants to add it.
Budding Farmers is still taking orders for their educational program.
For those of you who don’t follow us on Facebook or Twitter you may not have seen a picture of the recent visit by my new friend Shelly. I thought I’d include it here.
A policeman in the big city stops a man in a car with a large tortoise in the front seat. “What are you doing with that turtle?” He exclaimed, “You should take it to the zoo.” The following week, the same policeman sees the same man with the turtle again in the front seat, with both of them wearing sunglasses. The policeman pulls him over. “I thought you were going to take that turtle to the zoo!” The man replied, “I did. We had such a good time we are going to the beach this weekend!”