Lots of f-words spoken last week including frost and freeze – two things that are never good for farming. But we’ve gone through the drill before. Some years we get very little notice. Other years the weather folks are more clued in to the weather. This year we had a couple of days to prepare, which helped.
On the positive side the sprinklers kept the peppers from dying. Above is a picture of the pepper plants while the sprinklers were running. You can see the icicles hanging off the leaves. Below is a picture of the pepper plants where the water reached next to the plants where it didn’t reach. The difference is pretty dramatic.
And here is a picture of a pepper plant with a pepper that has ripened on the plant since the frost last week. Pretty impressive how we can keep the pepper plants going using a little bit of physics!
On the negative side it seems that areas of our farm got very cold. The thermometer said it got down to 32 degrees. That isn’t too cold for the cold weather crops. Things like broccoli, beets, radishes and cabbage have no problem with 32. Other plants like kale and Brussels Sprouts and Napa cabbage can get even colder. But since it was only 32 we figured all these plants should be fine. Unfortunately they are not.
As you can see in this picture the broccoli got hit reasonably hard. This should not happen at 32. Why did it this time? I have no freezing idea.
Same thing with the beets. These were looking great and we figured there should be no problem with the mildly cold weather. How wrong we were.
Then here is the most dramatic of all: the kale. In the past we’ve had kale plants covered in snow and they came out fine. We’ve had kale plants produce into November and down to 24 degrees. Why did this particular frost do so much damage? I have no freezing idea.
We spend the precious time we have covering up and harvesting the things that can’t survive a frost. We don’t expect the cold weather crops to require our attention, so we don’t do anything for them – unless the forecast says in will get into the 20s. So we didn’t bother covering them up and now they are damaged.
The good news is that if you look at the pictures closely you will see there are sufficient green leaves growing from the middle of the plants. The plants certainly survived and will produce the desired vegetable. Unfortunately every little bump makes them less productive and makes it take longer to get to the end result.
So for those of you asking about the kale you’ll have to wait a few more weeks. The broccoli is just now starting to head up so I suspect our timing is reasonable to have broccoli in October (better than late November like last season!) The beets may be delayed another week or two just to get them to size up a bit more but we should have them soon. For the most part everything we expected to have we will have – it will just take longer or perhaps not look quite as nice.
On another note, since we spent a lot of time harvesting the beans last week we figured it would be best to just give them all out to the members last week. Why store them here in our cooler when the members could eat or freeze them themselves? So that is why you got so many beans. You got last week’s and this week’s bean all in one week. And of course there will be no more beans this season.
The tomatoes are also done for the year. As are the cherry tomatoes, watermelons, and cucumbers. These are all warm weather crops and are not able to survive the frost from last week.
One of the big ongoing projects is the harvesting and storing of the winter squash. We harvested all the squash last Wednesday before the frost then covered them up in the field with floating row covers. It takes about a half hour per trip to transport and unload the squash and so far it has taken us six trips yesterday. Trying to harvest, transport and store the squash before the end of the day last Wednesday was not going to happen. So by putting the squash in long rows and covering them we kept them all from freezing. It seemed to work out pretty well. Hopefully by the end of today we will have the rest of the squash in the greenhouse curing.
Another ongoing project is the cutting of the garlic tops. We are about 85% complete. We figured if the forecast of a blustery day tomorrow (Wednesday) holds true it will give us plenty of time to finish that project.
Last week we finally finished processing the onions (Yay!). It is good to have one of the large projects complete.
What will there be this week? Well, we will have carrots again (Yay!), radishes (Yay!), onions, shallots, winter squash (probably delicate and carnival), garlic, peppers, tomatillos and salad mix. I think we will have potatoes as well though it depends on the soil moisture and rain situation. If it is dry enough to dig them up we will. Otherwise we will wait another week. We also have a few leftover beans, cabbages and cucumbers we will most likely give out in the tent where people can sort through them to find the good ones.
FruitShare
No FruitShare this week though next Wednesday we will be picking up organic apples from Hoch Orchard out of LaCrescent MN. This is one of the few organic apple orchards here in MN. Growing organic apples in the Midwest is tricky. Hoch seems to have come up with procedures to be successful at it. The box will contain a mixture of apples including Honeycrisps. If you would like to order a box a la carte please let me know. The price is $39 for a 10# box.
CheeseShare
There is no CheeseShare this week. Next Wednesday we will have smoked blue cheese, mild cheddar cheese and black bean salsa cheese. If you want to make changes to your cheese for that week please let me know asap. I would prefer not to make changes but I know some people have expressed they don’t like blue cheese so we will accommodate as best we can.
MeatShare
No MeatShare this week.
WinterStorageShare
We are getting close to having all the components of WinterStorageShare. The only thing remaining is the potatoes. I will let you know when they will be ready to pick up. You can still order WinterStorageShare.
FlowerShare
The flowers for the most part succumbed to the frost. We harvested the statice and made bouquets you can further dry and enjoy all winter. We have never seen statice stems turn brown before – I think it was just too cold for them – so we apologize for them not drying to a nice green color. Anyway, enjoy them as the are. The flowers themselves are a nice purple color! Starting next week we will be giving out pumpkins and gourds for FlowerShare.
And finally for those who do not follow us on Facebook I thought I’d show you why we keep the pepper plants growing for as long as possible. Peppers have a sense of humor don’t they…
As always do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or comments.