Category Archives: peppers

5/5/05 Vol. 2 #9

A day late with the newsletter for good reason.  The heritage turkeys came yesterday morning and we were scrambling around getting the brooder house (a.k.a. Poultry Villa) ready for them.  Every year it is something new with this turkey thing.  This year there are problems between the US Postal Service and certain airlines, who carry the mail, about shipping live birds.  So we were not sure that we were going to be able to get these turkey poults from Texas until they confirmed that they had actually made it on to the plane.  That was Tuesday afternoon and we originally thought we had until Thursday to get ready!  So we scampered around until dark on Tuesday getting the brooder all cleaned out and disinfected and going to town to get feed and  bedding.  Yesterday morning I was putting the finishing touches on the Poultry Villa as Betsy drove up to the Post Office after they called at 7:00 to let us know that the the little cheeping box had arrived.  So here we go again!  70 two day old balls of fluff zipping around.  So far they are all singing and dancing amongst the feeders and waterers.  We plan on getting another 35 Broad Breasted Bronzes from a local source in about 6 weeks to round out the flock.

Cinco de Mayo today and to celebrate we got all of the hot peppers in the ground the last couple of days, now we have to get all of the sweet bells planted if it will ever warm up!  It is now official, this cool spring season is the worst we have had in over ten years.  So cool that even the cool season crops are holding back including the flowers!  For the first time ever we will not have the overflowing flower display at market for the Mothers Day crowds.  It is also holding us back a little on getting the rest of these peppers in the ground as we plant the sweet bells, no-till, into a cover crop that we kill by rolling it down.  The problem is the cover crop won’t kill/die if it is not blooming and because of the cool weather it too is delayed.  Additionally if we plant the sweet bells into the colder-than-usual soil under that cover crop they will just sulk.  We plant the hots into black landscape fabric, just as we do with the early tomatoes, so that the soil is warmer but the sweet peppers don’t need as much heat , usually.  So we are going to wait a week to see if warmer temperatures will finally settle in.  How am I going to bring out the pepper roaster on schedule if peppers are delayed?

The cool weather has some good points.  Because there is not a lot for the staff to harvest yet we are getting really caught up on all the other jobs around the place.  Everything is weeded (well almost) , irrigated and trellised.  We may have to break out the paint brushes and put a coat on the packing shed or something!  The Rhubarb plants finally came this week and we planted them quickly.  This is the third time we have tried Rhubarb so if it doesn’t work this time then destiny is not on our side.  I think we finally have learned from our mistakes and have it in the right spot.   Next year we will see if we were right.  The video crew from NC State came out on Tuesday to shoot for a piece on the farm for the on-line Agroecology course.  If it is available for the public to view I will give you the link when it happens.

Picture of the Week
Bourbon Reds, Blue Slates and one of the black sheep Slates drinking and reading the N&O

5/18/05 Vol. 2 #11

Wow, what glorious weather!  Summer must be right around the corner.  This week as we were planting yet more Celosia flowers (this is an inside joke at the farm, Betsy always seems to have more Celosia to plant) Rett asked how many folks who had worked for us had gone on to start their own farms.  I had to think about it for a bit and finally came up with at least six (mostly in this area) and another three or four who most likely will someday.  That is out of the twenty plus people who have worked a full summer with us in the last ten years, that’s almost 50 percent!  I always say that only about one percent of the folks that start out to farm actually make it past the first five years.   Now some of my market gardener colleagues would view these new operations as competition but we view it as an indicator of sustainability.  An indicator that we have developed a sustainable farming system that can thrive and hire quality people who can then go on,  take parts of our system and create their own.  An indicator that this kind of farming is truly being embraced and supported by consumers and communities all over the country.  Remember that one of the three tenets of sustainability is the social component and we feel that in the long run it really is the glue that holds it all together.  This is an example of why certified organic is really a narrow view of farming, it doesn’t take into account these sorts of social dimensions.  Rett who is working on his own side market garden project had his first day at farmers’ market yesterday, so another one is launched!

You know that summer must be close when we start planting the winter squash!  We planted 2500 feet of row to six different varieties including acorns, butternut, and my favorite  Sweet Dumpling.  We got the second planting of corn in and cultivated the first planting (not a great stand due to the cold soil temperatures)  More sunflowers and other warm season flowers too.  Finally the late spring cover crops began to bloom and so we have started to plant the no-till peppers and late tomatoes.  We roll down these huge cover crops, which kills them, and then we cut a slit into them and the soil then plant the transplants right into the mulch.  By the end of today all of the peppers will be in the ground and we put the last planting of Cherokee Purple tomatoes in last Friday.  The irrigation rolls out behind all of these new plantings as we are beginning to get dry and these little quarter inch rains just don’t do much, when the hot days come it will become critical quickly!

On a literary note, I knew last week that I had mangled Twain’s quote about cold weather in San Francisco.  The quote actually goes “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”.  Well I had several corrective e-mails and further conversations at market, including one that said he had used that statement about Portland or Seattle.  This all peaked my interest and so I did a little research and it turns out that it is all an urban legend, there has never been any documentation that Twain ever said or wrote this quote.  So I guess we where all wrong!  None the less, the comparison to the generally cool temperatures in that part of California allowing ideal conditions to grow lettuce still holds.

Picture of the Week
Tough love, peppers planted directly into the rolled cover crops.  Better for the soil and the sweet bell peppers

5/10/06 Vol. 3 #9

So busy yesterday that I couldn’t get this done until this morning (after chasing yet more roaming turkeys), see you at market!

The big pepper plant is today and I hope we are ready for it.  It is a challenge this year as we are planting into maybe the most difficult field we have, as far as soil is concerned.  This is the field that we call “the Top” as it is the highest point on the farm and the farthest away from everything.  When we started going to Farmers’ Market in 1986 this was the only piece of ground that wasn’t planted to blackberries and raspberries so we turned it over and began the experiment with vegetables and cut flowers.  My brother Jon was here at that time and vegetables were his area of expertise.  He and Betsy borrowed a neighbors plow and turned over this far corner of the farm and found a mixed bag.  The field is long and irregular in shape (you know those of use who are members of the straight line police hate that) and the soil changes from one end to the other.  Marvelous sandy loam on the bottom end but the top end is the most difficult red clay we own, very slow to dry out and almost impossible to work into a good seed bed.  Joann is still scarred from having to plant tomatoes into that red clay and having to stack what amounted to pieces of brick around the root balls.  This spring, however, the beds worked up as nicely as they ever have so we don’t have to fight that problem, at least on half of the 1600 feet of pepper beds.  The other half we always plant without tilling the soil, right into thick cover crop of grain rye and hairy vetch that we have killed and flattened down by rolling it.  It is like growing our fertilizer and mulch right in place.  After we roll it down we cut slits into the mulch and the soil, with the the tractor, to set the plants into.  If it is too dry the cutting wheels can’t cut through.  If it is too wet, especially in red clay, it can make a mess that is hard to plant into.  With all of the rain in the last two weeks I am a bit worried that it could be a bit too wet.  We’ll find out later today if that is the case!  None-the-less Rachel and Will (the newest staff member) will be charged with carefully interpreting my diagram of which pepper varieties go where.  Just like the tomatoes there is a strategy as to which ones like or will do better in the different soil types.  The hot peppers definitely need to be in the warmer sandy loam soil while the more disease resistant sweet bells can stand up better to the red clay.  No matter what it will be one at time until the over 2000 plants are tucked into the ground whether it be sandy or clayey.

Late graduation day for the turkeys this week.  Usually we start letting them out to get used to the idea at three weeks of age.  This year because we got them earlier and it has been cold we just let them out yesterday for the first time.  Now five weeks old and full of extra energy from being cooped up they have been acting up already!  We pull one of the shelters up in front of the brooder building, about five feet away and then put up some chicken wire between the two.  There is a ramp/door on the front of the brooder so they can come in and out.  Usually they are very tentative and take a day or so to get used to going out, into the new shelter, and eating grass.  These guys came out and started flying over the chicken wire almost immediately.  I had to chase some down into the woods to catch them.  We clipped the wing feathers on these bad actors after they flew out a second time.  I hope we can get them calmed down or it will be a long summer of rounding up escapees.

Picture of the Week
Tentative about the outdoors just before going wild in flight

6/14/06 Vol. 3 #14

Well I’ve been up since 4:00 a.m. trying to reserve plane tickets to Italy.  As these things go on the Internet sometimes, I have yet to successfully complete the transaction (it is now 6:30).  We have finally heard, quasi-officially, from the Slow Food people that we have been accepted to attend the second Terra Madre conference in Turin Italy!  Some of you may remember that we were very fortunate to have been nominated to attend the first ever world gathering of food producers two years ago.  That experience of convening with 5000 other farmers, ranchers, herders, gatherers, etc. and the on farm housing has colored many of the new things we do here on the farm.  The exposure to cultures steeped in artisanal foods and old breeds has made us explore new (to us) varieties and food production ideas.  The on going attempt to form a successful poultry and meat processing cooperative has partly sprung out of the knowledge that with out it, local farmers will not be able to move towards further sustainability of their operations.  So we are off again to Turin the end of October.  This time not only with 5000 food producers but also with 1000 chefs and over 150 academics from around the world.  Slow Food is correctly expanding their aim to include the professional people who cook with local foods and can most quickly affect peoples palates and minds.  Our local chapter (convivium in Slow Food parlance) put forth an ambitious slate of people to attend and it appears as if almost all were accepted to go.  This includes our good friends, chefs and customers Ben and Karen Barker of Magnolia Grill and Andrea Ruesing of Lantern Restaurant.  Our delegation will also consist of at least eight animal producers and eight representatives of the seven local producer-only farmers’ markets.  We see this as a great opportunity to help move our local food system to a new level of understanding and cooperation.

The Slow Food organization and it’s mission resounds closely with what Betsy and I have been trying to do for the past twenty five years.  In the words of it’s founder, Carlo Petrini, producing food that is “good, clean and fair”.  We have always tried to grow products with great flavor and eye appeal (good), in a way that is sustainable (clean) and treats us, our employees and our customers well (fair).  With over 80,000 members world wide there appears to be lots of folks who think similarly.

Otherwise it is a rain day as the remnants of Alberto pour down.  We now appear to be in the monsoon season.  In preparation for todays storms we did cover the last of the Big Tops under which the late tomatoes are to be planted.  The trellis is up and probably tomorrow the plants will be slipped into the ground.  We also got the first layer of trellis on the hot peppers.  Unfortunately the huge storms on Sunday had laid over many of the tall Poblano and Anaheim plants.  So we stood them back up and secured them with the trellis strings before any more damage occurs today.  In general the peppers look really good but need a little more heat to really get going.  The eggplant and tomatillos are now in as well.  The turkeys are wearing trench coats and rubber boots, it was hard to find some small enough for Shrimpy.

Picture of the Week
On a sunny day the birds are eyeing Betsy’s lush Zinnias

7/12/06 Vol. 3 #18

Now the weather is returning to more normal summers conditions this week but in general we are all looking at each other and saying “I don’t ever remember a summer like this”.  This, this… not so hot.  No complaining here mind you but it does sort of throw one off balance.  Just as you have your brain programmed to expect one thing and act in a certain way it doesn’t happen.  The only comparison is back in 1991, which we always refer to as the Mt. Pinatubo summer.  That summer that volcano in the Philippines erupted and sent huge amounts of ash into the stratosphere which circulated the globe for months.  The result was a very cool summer in North Carolina,  we barely got into the 90′s.  Back then we were in the midst of the long and expensive “Raspberry Experiment”.  The most noticeable result from that cool summer was that the raspberry canes grew almost twice a tall as normal and the following year we had the best harvest we had ever had.  It turns out that it is too hot here for raspberries to grow vigorously, but that summer it was more like the conditions further north where they produce them in abundance.  Soon there after the raspberries came out of the ground never to be planted here again (under threat of certain penalties from Betsy!).  So while we are not experiencing as dramatic conditions as that year it is still affecting crops here on there farm.  Most noticeably the tomatoes are still not producing at the level we are accustomed to.  Every Monday and Thursday we go out and pick and while we are getting some of all the varieties we are not bringing back the number of boxes that we should be.  Normally this would be the peak week of tomato harvest but it will be at least next week if not later.  Yesterday we were up working in the peppers and the rows that are on black landscape fabric are moving along well but the rows planted no-till are way behind.  The soil is cooler under all that mulch which in hot weather a good thing but this season it is holding those plants back.  Just when your brain is programmed one way…

We did manage to get the cover crops all seeded before the big rains last week and they are up already and looking great, little soybean plants raising there fat heads out of the soil and the millet with one blade pointed straight up towards the sky.  The turkeys have all been rotated around the farm.  The little guys as we call the Broad Breasted Bronzes right now (they will eventually weigh twice a much as the Bourbon Reds) graduated out to the blueberries from the brooder and are extremely happy lazing the days away in the shade of the blueberry bushes and taking group walks around their new grassy enclosure.  The Bourbon Reds have moved into Betsy’s first and now abandoned Zinnia patch (we plant Zinnias five times and she is now cutting off the second batch).  This is the same field that had the leeks, radicchio and the last lettuce among other crops so they are now eating the crab grass and other weeds while hiding out in the four foot tall Zinnia rows like outlaws only to come creeping out when someone walks by the fence.  The last Zinnias get planted this week and the Brussels Sprouts for Thanksgiving went into the ground this week too.  Despite the different weather we still march on with the calendar assuming that normalcy will return.

Picture of the Week
The effects of cool weather.  The same varieties next to each other but the plants on the warmer black fabric are much larger and have large peppers on them.

8/14/06 Vol. 3 #22

Back from the summer “break” and already we are running around like crazy so this will be a quick newsletter.  The time off was too short and we worked far too much, we did have some nice dinners out and slower afternoons but we are going to have to rethink how to actually make it even slower.  Now we are back at it trying to get caught up and into the swing.  The staff is back too and are ready to go, after a good long week off.  Today was tomato picking and turkey moving.  The rest of the week there are more fall crops to plant, peppers to pick and plenty of regular maintenance chores to take care of.  The dry spell is really getting noticeable as the cover crops are not growing as they should and some near the tree lines are really stunted.  The creek stopped running last week and we will have to start pulling water out of the upper pond soon.  Perfect weather for peppers as long as we keep them irrigated.

What’s up with the early newsletter?  Betsy and I have to leave for the airport at 4:30 in the morning to fly to Wisconsin.  Not exactly the week we would have planned to be gone again but we are receiving the Patrick Madden Award for Sustainable Agriculture and thought we might ought to be there to accept it.  We are very surprised and honored to have been even nominated for such an award and nearly speechless (well almost, you know Alex).  The award is presented by the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program, the USDA’s effort at helping to make agriculture more sustainable.  “This award recognizes producers who have explored ways to make farming more profitable, environmentally sound and good for communities, and have served as effective educators”.  We are always amazed when anyone recognizes us for what we consider everyday farm work and the outreach we do to anyone who has questions.  On top of it there will be an embarrassing amount of publicity about it including an interview on NPR’s All Things Considered with Melissa Block on Wednesday afternoon.  We won’t be back until Thursday late so Rachel and Will will be taking care of Wednesday market and the farm along with Joann.

Picture of the Week

It is colored bell and pepper roaster time!

4/11/07 Vol. 4 #4

Wow, that was cold!  Five mornings in the twenties with the nadir Sunday morning at 20 degrees!  Everyone wants to know what the damage has been to the crops but it is really too early to really tell about most of them.  The tomatoes survived with some severe freeze damage on the outside rows but they all should grow out of it.  The cucumbers look unscathed, amazing.  The dutch iris actually look great, Betsy has begun to cut a few. and we haven’t had any open completely yet but so far they appear to have no injury.  The big question is the blueberries.  That will take a week or more for the damage to be really apparent.  This freeze is very similar to the April freeze in 2001, when it was 24 degrees on the 18th with high winds.   That season we lost all the blueberries.  Most of the rest of the crops look fine, the sugar snap peas are burned a bit along with other odds and ends of crops.  Time will tell.

Monday I gave my last big presentation of the speaking season in Spartanburg, SC.  While I have traveled around the country quite a bit giving talks on all kinds of farming subjects it is these full day workshops that I seem to becoming known for.  This one, for 60 farmers and other ag related folks, is at least the fifth or sixth where I hold forth for an entire day, attempting to cover the entire subject of organic/sustainable vegetable production.  Can’t be done really.  The best part, is that after an entire day of examples and pictures I think they go away with the most important lesson: this kind of farming is an interrelated system where each action the farmer takes affects other things up and down the line.  Sure they go away with a big notebook full of information, and lots of details on soil management, how to control weeds and more but it is the big picture that I hope has become clearer to them.  It is hard to get a grasp on this complex system when you only hear someone speak for and hour or so.  I am currently working with the Southern Sustainable Agricultural Working Group (SSAWG) on a CD-Rom on Organic Vegetable Production and Marketing that is modeled after my full day workshops.  Now all of this is really just the Readers Digest version of the Sustainable Vegetable Production course that I designed and taught for five or six years at the Sustainable Farming Program at Central Carolina Community College in Pittsboro.  There I carried on for three hours a night for sixteen weeks!  Full immersion for sure.  Now the real benefit for Betsy and me to all of this is that the more times I have to explain to people how we farm, the closer I scrutinize why we do things in certain ways and, hopefully, we refine the system even more.

Picture of the Week
The perfect rainy day activity, moving up the 2500 plus pepper plants

5/10/07 Vol. 4 #8

Blackberry winter is what my father always called these times in late spring when we get abnormally cool periods.  Not really abnormal as it seems to happen every year, and it is when the blackberries are blooming along the roadsides.  We were in the high 30′s on Monday morning and all of the crops, except for the lettuce maybe, are looking skyward wondering when the heat will come and make them bust out in profusion.  Another Mother’s Day and graduation upon us and Betsy is wondering just when all those flowers will start to bloom too.  There is a bloom here and there just teasing her and the plants are looking really good and full of buds.   This is the story the beginning of each May when the big question from Weaver Street, graduates, parents of graduates, brides and others is “When will you have more flowers?”, we just shrug and say probably the week after Mothers Day.  It does seem to be exaggerated this year due to the tremendous cold snap at Easter, it really made a lot of crops just stop and it has taken some time for them to get rolling again.

The last big hurdle is in front of us this week.  Pepper planting.  Now that the tomatoes are in and looking really great, the last of the large plantings is upon us.  From here on we only plant a few beds a week and never are they as important to the whole farm as the big pepper array is.  Twenty two varieties this year including a few new ones.  The best part is we are in one of the best fields we have.  Great soil and sun, the last time we had peppers here (2002) it was a superb crop.  The plants look as good as they ever have too.  Good germination and they have grown well and look very uniform.  Sometimes, especially with the hot peppers, germination can be poor and then they can take forever to get going.  The last few years we have gotten into the pattern of planting the peppers in two stages.  The first half go into raised beds covered with black landscape fabric which warms up the soil a bit faster.  We put the hot peppers and some of the finicky sweet ones  into these beds, I think they need the additional boost the warmer soil gives them.  In the second planting stage, all of the red bells, and half of the yellow and orange bells, we plant “no-till” into the remains of a huge cover crop of rye and hairy vetch.  There are many reasons why we do it this way but better long term soil management and less disease on the peppers are the main ones.  We have been experimenting/working with this system since 1995 and each year we refine it.  This year is exciting as we have new tractor implements that we hope will make it really easy to plant into the thick residue from the cover crops.  Again this spring we may have to wait another week to get them in the ground because it is impossible to kill the cover crop organically until the hairy vetch is really blooming.  Like everything else, it is delayed from all of the cool weather.  Once the rye has sent out its seed heads and the hairy vetch is in full bloom we can just roll down this mass of plant material which crimps the stems and they give up the ghost and die.  If they are not blooming then, even with the rolling, they have a will to live and make a seed that allows them to re grow which then makes them a pesky weed in the peppers.  Patience is the key, they began blooming nicely this week so next week will be just fine.

Picture of the Week
Preparing the pepper beds for planting, no-till on left, tilled with fabric going on, on the right.

6/13/07 Vol. 4 #13

This is the time of year that we are always tieing something up.  Many of the summer crops need “assistance” standing up, so over the years we have developed multiple ways to trellis them.  Trellising takes extra time and labor so we only do it for certain crops that really need it.  Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and pole beans in the vegetables along with lisianthus, sunflowers, celosia, delphinium and a few others in the flowers.  Besides making it easier to harvest them because they are up off the ground it also gives us better quality.  Straight flower stems with clean blooms are Betsy’s goal, those S shaped sunflower stems may look cool but most folks won’t buy them.  In the vegetables it also give us nice clean fruit but also allows for good airflow around the plants so they dry out faster in the mornings after a rain or heavy dew.  Most of the diseases that affect these crops are a fungus or a bacteria, warm wet conditions are perfect for them to go wild.  If we can get those plants up into the breeze then we can slow down the inevitable spread of these diseases.  So we have come up with a set of trellis designs that can be put up fast, do the job and then come down just as fast.  I am the king of metal T-posts, electric fence wire, a few pieces of 2X4, baling twine and some kind of mesh either plastic or metal.  Sounds just like a farmer, a job is not worth doing if it doesn’t involve some electric fence wire, baling twine and maybe some duct tape.

Early in the year the staff is gradually trained in how to build the various “styles”.  Heavy duty tomato trellis with metal fencing hanging off of six foot T-posts, strong enough to bear the weight of nearly 1000 pounds of fruit and vine per 100 foot long row.  Then the wispy pea fences of plastic mesh hanging off the same post set up, just enough structure for them to grab onto with their tendrils and light hollow stems.  Soon they move to the graduate courses in trellising, horizontal structures that float over the rows on cross arms attached to… metal T-posts.  First the plastic flower netting placed just above the growing and budding plants so the weight of just the heavy blooms are supported as they grow up through it.  Finally the two and three level condos of trellises, the pepper array.  A lower level of baling twine run on either side of the little ten inch tall plants to keep them upright in the summer storms.  Then another layer eighteen inches above that of wires and baling twine to catch the branches as they grow up through it to support the weight of the growing fruit, really tall peppers like poblanos get a third, pent house layer at almost four feet above ground.  Cov and Elizabeth are now certified trellis technicians, with almost 6000 feet of construction behind them.  This week the last 500 feet of tomato trellis and the first layer on the pepper trellis.  A friend once said my tombstone would read “He was an OK farmer but he sure could tie things up”.

Pictures of the Week
Tomatoes reaching for the sky and nice straight peppers

6/27/07 Vol. 4 #15

This is one of those growing seasons that feels like death by a thousand cuts.  Now every year we have crops that don’t do well or fail completely and others that are magnificent and make up for the short falls, that is what being diversified is all about.  You hear farmers say something like ”this year I lost money but we had a couple of good years in a row there, we have another bad one and we might lose the farm”.  For twenty three straight years we had always made more money than the year before, in the early years that was easy to do as we were so pitiful at the beginning the only way we could go was up.  The later years we were still figuring things out, building the business, settling on markets and crops to grow with lots of room for improvement.  Now that trick gets harder as we have pretty much settled in to a  routine, so when one crop fails, there is not a new one in the wings to surprise us.  For the last few years we have done well but not better than the previous best year, the thousand cuts are more of a psychological issue than a serious financial one.  They just begin to weigh on you, especially as it gets hotter and as I tell the staff “I begin to lose my sense of humor”.

The list of nicks is already long this year, the freeze took the blueberries and affected other crops in strange ways.  The unusually cold spring affected germination of many of the early direct seeded vegetables and flowers, we had to replant the first Zinnia planting when it didn’t come up, an eighth of an acre!  The drought in May made it hard to get crops established and others slow to grow.  No turkeys or asparagus this year either.  Then lately the varmit eating tomatoes and melon issue.  The most recent discoveries are that half the red onions are not what we had ordered (they will still eat well, just not what we wanted) and the 400 poblano plants that were looking so good appear to not be poblanos, but some kind of bell pepper instead!!!!  This too will change and the other summer crops look great.  The lisianthus may be even more fantastic than last years incredible crop.  We picked the first good batch of tomatoes out of the big planting Monday and they look good too.  The rest of the peppers are right on schedule and even the onions are bigger than last year (even if some of them are the wrong variety).  This adversity is what drives some people out of farming, they can’t take the unknowns and set backs, no matter how great the rest of the rewards are.  For us this is the challenge that keeps us getting up in the morning, trying to figure out how to solve a problem or learn yet more about how nature works.  Some days I just wish the box of band aids wasn’t out on the counter.

Picture of the Week
It did rain enough to get the summer cover crop up!  Cowpeas with the daisies.