It has been a few weeks since the last newsletter so there is much to update. But to keep this newsletter brief eough for people to actually read it I will limit the news to a smaller subset.
We have just a few shares left, like less than five so if you plan to join and haven’t already now is the time. I’m hoping this is the last time I mention available shares this season.
Of course we still have the other shares available, e.g. fruit, coffee, flowers, eggs, etc. Order them from our online store or send me a email then follow-up with payment. Either works.
I have recently been informed by Google that they are discontinuing there feedburner email service. This is the service we use to send our newsletter to our newsletter readers by email. Of course they have to make this change in the next couple of months instead of waiting until the farming season is over. How inconsiderate of Google! Anyway, we are looking into other email services that can accomplish the same task. Some of the requirements are: 1- Integration with WordPress, 2 – Automatic email with the contents of a new blog posting, 3 – easy enough to use that a farmer can use it, 4 – free or close enough to free so it is essentially free, 5 – All the unknown requirements that I really should take into account. If you have any recommendations, experience, etc. send them my way. Who knew farming was so difficult?
Farm News
First I want to thank those of you who made it out to the potato planting party awhile back. We had a great group of helpers and got it all planted by 4:00. I think everyone had fun and if they didn’t they kept it to themselves. Thanks again!!
A few weeks back, like early April, it seemed that this season would start earlier than most. I was skeptical seeing that early April is not late April. And April being April anything can happen no matter which end of April we are talking about. In particular the swings in temperature. Paul Huttner at mpr.org had a nice short article about how average this April was. For both temperature and rainfall it was as close to an average April as possible. However, the temperature swings were another story. Early April it was far above the average temperature. Mid-to-late April it was below average. By the end of April we were back to average. In other words, for you scientifically minded, April 2021 was very accurate but not very precise.
For farmers, this imprecision makes things difficult. We want to get planting as soon as possible. With the early warmth it seemed possible that we’d get an early start. The hope was we could have an inaccurate — and very warm — April that was also quite precise. But by the middle of April we were quickly losing our precision. In addition, April’s rainfall was quite imprecise. We had a bunch of rain early in April, then a dry spell as the temps dropped into the 30s and at times 20s, then a bunch of rainfall at the end of the month just as the temps were rising. However the accuracy of April’s rainfall was quite good, which is a plus I suppose but this darn imprecision is killing us! Soil moisture is a big factor on whether we can plant or not. If the soil is too wet we can’t work it to allow for planting. I’m not sure if there is a too dry. So with the late April rains we were delayed planting until later than average. All this is to say what once looked like an early start to the season has turned into a later than average — or more precisely an inaccurate — start to the planting season.
An additional factor affecting this season is the use of some new equipment. I’m not sure how many of you typically buy farm equipment but what I’ve noticed over the years is that the user manual — if there is one — is sparsely worded. It is like it was written by a farmer. The manuals never provide much assistance so it is a lot of trial and error. We purchased two new pieces of equipment, the first being a bed-shaper/drip-tape layer and a water wheel transplanter. We bought the first piece of equipment because we’ve noticed over the last many years that rainfall is far more inconsistent (imprecise or inaccurate?) than it was in the past. We typically get a period of time during the season when we don’t get rain for three weeks. During this time we had to find ways to get water to our plants and that typically was moving sprinklers (though we have always put down drip tape on some of the long term crops like tomatoes). Our hope was this equipment would make laying drip tape easier and faster. What we’ve learned is that the equipment is finicky with our soil type. We have a silty loam soil that holds water quite well. The down side is it is very sticky. With the bed-shaper/tape-layer the soil cakes onto the equipment and forms more of a bulldozer than a plow. So by the time you get to the end of the row there is a big pile of dirt, and looking back at the bed we tried to shape you see an increasingly narrow row of soil that starts at around 30″ across and ends around 20″ across with varying widths down the length of the bed. We would have liked more precision. So, what we hoped would be an easy way for us to lay drip tape has become a difficult chore — unless the soil is just right, which it has been of late with the sudden lack of rain.
The planter has the same problem. We bought the planter for a couple of reason. The main reason is that we farmers are becoming older and less willing to crawl around on the ground. The other reason was to be more precise in where our plants are planted. The planter will keep the rows of plants precisely spaced — which aides cultivation — based on how the planter is setup. As we drive along the bed the planter punches hole in the soil and fills them with water. Two people-planters sitting on the back of the machine push transplants into these small puddles of water. Unfortunately, with the water wheel planter putting water on the dirt the dirt becomes mud and again with our soil it becomes quite sticky. After a bed or two the spikes become clogged and the wheel is caked with mud. What previously were nice, transplant shaped holes become larger, caked-mud shaped holes. We have a potential solution that we will try out next week after it gets here. If it works I’ll talk about it in another newsletter. If it doesn’t then I’ll edit this newsletter to remove any mention of it.
Well this newsletter is far longer than expected. So much for keeping it short. Anyway, as always, do not hesitate to send in questions, comments, suggesting, jokes, etc. We always love hearing from our members no matter how imprecise or inaccurate they may be!