Find out about the latest addition to the farm after a few brief messages.
Pick-up instructions are in the process of being finalized and sent out via email. Some of you may have already received them. Others should have them by the first part of next week at the latest. If you don’t receive the instructions by the middle of next week please let me know and I will send them again.
The season starts the week of June 19th. Please plan accordingly.
Still taking orders, blah, blah, blah…
We are still in need of another part time employee. Or if a bunch of you want to come out and lend a hand — each once this season — that could work too!
Farm News
Yay. I finally got a question from one of our readers (Full disclosure: I don’t know if she actually reads the newsletter) and it went something like this:
Hey, Farmer Chris: What the hell is this yellow stringy thing on the basil you sold me?
Actually, I don’t recall her swearing but if I were her I probably would. It’s just my nature I guess. Anyway, she sent a lovely picture of the yellow stringy thing to help me figure out what it was. And the most surprising part is that I actually knew. It is a fascinating plant called dodder.
I’ve never seen dodder here on the farm. I’ve seen it when we lived in California. That doesn’t mean it is more prevalent in California, it’s just that was the last time I saw it. Dodder is considered a noxious plant. We don’t want dodder. In our climate it won’t survive the winter but if it sets seeds the plants can continue to be a nuisance for years to come.
Why is dodder a noxious plant and why is it so fascinating? The answer to both of these questions is that it is a parasitic plant. Much like your teenage children, it relies completely on another living thing to provide everything it needs to survive. Dodder starts its life as a seed that germinates in the soil. Once it emerges it looks for a host plant to invade. If it doesn’t find a host it dies and goes to dodder heaven, or wherever its spiritual leanings dictate it to go. If it does find a host it starts twining up the host and inserts haustoria — a root like structure — into the host plant. Once it makes this connection the root in the soil dies and the dodder feeds exclusively on the host plant. The haustoria are like the hands of you teenagers and the host is the fridge. Once they get their hands in the fridge there is no longer a need to find food elsewhere. So you are stuck with the teenager for the rest of his teenage life.
Dodder doesn’t have traditional leaves like the usual plants we encounter. It also doesn’t photosynthesize like traditional plants. It relies completely on the host plant for its sustenance! I’m envious.
There are some varieties of dodder that are native to Minnesota but I suspect this particular dodder came from elsewhere. Why? Good question. It appeared on one or two (or more?) of the plants we started in the greenhouse. It also seems to only be on the basil and so far only her basil (we looked at all our remaining basil plants and found none with dodder). We did a cursory look at the other plants in our field as we weeded them and found no dodder. Since she mentioned she saw the dodder when she picked up the plants I have to believe it came from the farm. And since it is only on the two basil plants I suspect there was a rogue dodder seed in the basil seeds. Another possibility is that the dodder seed could have been in the planting soil we use. I would think this would show up as our finding dodder on other plants but I suppose if there was just one seed we may not see it elsewhere.
Please let me know if any of the plants you received from us have these yellow vine-like plants attached to your plant. I’d like to get a sense as to the extent of the invasion and if it goes beyond the basil. Just to add to the difficulty in figuring this out. If you have dodder on a plant and the plant if near another plant of a different type, the dodder could cross over to the other plant. So if you see dodder on something other than basil see if the basil plant also has it. And of course if there is no basil plant and you have dodder this would be a very important data point.
So what do you do if you find dodder on a plant? Unfortunately the best thing to do is destroy the plant by throwing it in the trash or burning it. Don’t try composting it. You don’t want it to flower and set seed otherwise you could be fighting dodder for years. Don’t try just pulling the dodder off the plant hoping that resolves the problem. The plant can “re-sprout” from haustoria and continue to grow — you will never be able to rid the plant of the haustoria. If you have a basil plant from us I can credit your account or grow you a new basil plant, whichever you prefer. But you have to let me know so I can track the extent of the problem.
This situation highlights one of the main difficulties of farming in the 21st century. We farmers rely on suppliers to provide perfect inputs to the farm free of any harmful substances whether they are diseases, seeds, or chemicals. Unfortunately many of the substances are difficult or too expensive to detect. Plus, though you may find the checked sample free of the harmful substance there may still be that substance in seeds or soil that you didn’t check. And, of course, which of the myriad things do you test for? Many seed companies test for certain pathogens but not all pathogens. I mentioned in the past that our hoop house is infected with verticillium. I can assure you it didn’t spring up out of thin air. Sometime in the past a tomato seed (or potentially another carrier seed) was infected with the verticillium and it grew from there. The best we can do is try to keep out the problems as much as possible and mitigate the issue by rotating crops, pulling out infected plants as soon as possible, testing diseased plants to figure out what we are dealing with and relying on reputable seed sources (though as I mentioned this doesn’t solve the problem).
In any case, check your plants and let me know if anyone else finds dodder. In the mean time, I’ll just continue doddering around the farm as an old farmer should.
Brain Teaser
Let’s say you are using one the the delicious potatoes from your share to make a baked potato. You put it in the oven to cook while you work on the rest of your meal. It takes a while for the potato to cook. Longer than you wanted and boy are you getting hungry. You have been thinking about this baked potato all day. You have butter. You have sour cream. And most importantly chives from your share. This is going to be the best baked potato ever!
When it’s finally done, you take it out, burning your fingertips in the process (should have used oven mitts!) But you are hungry! You want to eat it as soon as possible. But it is still 210+ degrees! Maybe I should add the sour cream and butter. That would surely cool it off faster. But you suddenly realize you need to take out the trash. It will take you about five minutes to gather it up and bring it out to the curb. So the question is, should you add the butter and sour cream now before you take out the trash or wait until you get done? Which would cool off the potato faster? Like I said, you are hungry! And finally, how do the chives factor into the equation?
That is all for now. As always, do not hesitate to send in questions, comments, suggestions, orders, etc.