This week’s farm update (and maybe last week’s as well since I don’t think I sent out a newsletter last week). But first a couple of things:
We are sold out for the 2021 season. Thank you to everyone who joined and/or referred others to our farm. We appreciate your support!
We are now taking orders for JamShare. For those unfamiliar with JamShare, it is a monthly pint of delicious jams and jellies created by Amish families from Black River Falls WI for the five months of the veggie season. Flavors include peach, strawberry, strawberry rhubarb, pineapple, blueberry and black raspberry. Order your JamShare today!
We are still taking orders for Fruit, Eggs, Coffee, Mushrooms, Flowers and WinterShare. Please consider purchasing these delicious add-on products to complement your veggies. Order soon!
Farm News
So far this season has been exactly like every other season in that it is unique. The whipsaw swings in temperature and precipitation are quite challenging. We had a warm start to April, then cold, then no rain now a soaking multi-day rain with the forecast of more rain. Crazy. All this recent rain has really made things grow — especially the weeds. What we need now is a soaking sun to dry things up so we can get back into the field to take care of the weeds. I don’t see that in the forecast though, unfortunately. But the forecasters have been wrong before.
So what do we do when we have a multi-day rain? I’m glad you asked. We spent all our time cleaning and sanitizing our wash area, packing areas, cold storage area and all the various totes and crates we use to harvest, store and deliver your veggies. In the immortal words of the Hyatt Regency toilet seat safety band we “Sanitized for your protection”. I have to say the two-day soak in soapy water helped dislodge the ground-in dirt my hands seemed to have acquired the last month or so. Sometimes rainy days are helpful in surprising ways.
One activity we’ve put a substantial amount of effort into this season is gopher eradication. Managing gophers has been a constant struggle on the farm ever since our across the street neighbors burned their yards to install native prairie. Apparently gophers prefer not being incinerated. Anyway, not that we are keeping score but so far I believe we are ahead, substantially. I’m hoping we are down to the last several gopher mounds in the cultivated area and then can start looking at the other uncultivated areas. It would be nice to not have to fix the underground irrigation lines again next spring.
One exciting new development is the emergence of the potatoes, finally! It seems like it was months ago that we planted them with the assistance of our members. I was starting to worry that they were never going to appear. But Nature has come through and with this rain they should grow fast. I suppose the next step is to scout for Colorado potato beetles, those slothful pests of the insect world.
For those of following up from the last newsletter and our soil caking issue, here is our solution. We stretched a bicycle inner tube around the wheel’s spikes (see above picture). Being flexible, the inner tube allowed the spikes to be their usual spike size when being inserted into the ground however when the spikes came out of the ground the inner tube sprang back into its usual round self and dislodged the mud — at least that was the plan. It worked enough to continue to use this method but not as well as we hoped. The mud still caked on but it took several beds — as opposed to several plants with the non-inner tube method — before we had to dislodge the mud, We’ll keep experimenting and hope we eventually find a workable solution.
Other than that we are just doing the usual farming — planting, cultivating, hoeing, planting, hoeing, cultivating, hoeing, cultivating, planting and hoeing. I think that is about it. Let me know if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, brain teasers or good jokes. For a joke to be good it has to be at least as good as this joke (which is a pretty low bar):
What is a honeymoon salad?
Lettuce alone with no dressing.