Category Archives: tomatoes

Peregrine Farm News Vol. 10 #12, 4/24/13

What’s been going on!

Tired today or at least a bit sore.  Two mornings of splitting firewood and two afternoons of hanging sheetrock in the new building.  Not too many jobs have as many awkward moves and lifting of heavy things.  There always seems to be a period in the spring when we have to spend a day or two tying up projects that didn’t quite get finished over the winter.  This spring no exception and the workshop project of course will continue to take a lot of time and attention for the next month.

The firewood is of course a perennial project, we heat the house with wood, always have.  We now have “heat on the wall” but only use it when we go away and don’t want the pipes to freeze.  With fifteen acres of woods there are always trees that need to be cut up from storm damage or just dying.  This year of course were the four big trees that came down in the big storm last July that blew down the Big Tops.  With so much going on we haven’t had time to finish cutting them up until the last month.  It is nice to have the front yard unobstructed again and as a silver lining to the storm damage, a years’ worth of firewood “in the dry” as my brother would say.

The main job this week continues to be getting the big planting of tomatoes in the ground.  Jennie and Liz have all the irrigation and fabric on the beds and today will get all the trellis built.  Tomorrow, in the cloudy and showery weather, will be the perfect conditions to transplant the big plants so they will have very little transplant shock.  Still need to sucker (prune) the early tomatoes and move the peppers up to their bigger containers, hopefully by end of Friday.

For the second year in a row we will not be on the Farm Tour this weekend, just too much going on.  If you go, have a good time, we will be hanging sheetrock and other fun pursuits.

Pictures of the Week

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Tomato beds ready for trellis

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100’s of plants ready to go in the ground

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 10 #11, 4/19/13

What’s been going on!

One of those a chicken on a hot plate weeks with lots of things going on that needed to coordinate well.  I would say mostly successful.  The main task was to get the last few parts of the tomato Big Tops installed and then pull the plastic cover over the bows.  In the rebuild we are using some new techniques and materials but it went smoothly.  In our second year together as a team, the four of us have the covering dance down to a well choreographed ballet.

Jennie and Liz start by finding the lead edge that will be pulled over the bows and “fluff” the rest of the plastic so it will follow easily.  With me on a 10’ step ladder I lead one corner over one thirteen foot high end hoop with a rope tied to it, handing it to Liz who then pulls will almost all her might while Jennie pushes the plastic up and over the top webbing with a long handled broom.  As Jennie gets near the halfway point I run to the far end and climb another ladder and pull the other corner over, with rope, hand it to Betsy and then I begin to move down the side of the tunnel flapping and pulling the edge down.

Corners tied off I use the ladders at each end to clip a piece of wide webbing onto the end hoops that holds the ends of the plastic to the frame while Betsy feeds one of the ropes, that actually hold the plastic onto the frame, down the leg row to the far end.  With two of us on each side we pass the rope back and forth over the top, two people managing the rope and two tightening and tying it down to the top to the legs.  Rinse and repeat with another rope and we are done.  40 minutes elapsed time.

The rest of the week consisted of cultivation, weeding, trellising peas, planting and getting ready for planting.  The tomato beds are all ready for covering with landscape fabric and trellis building, might start today, depends on how crazy the weather is this afternoon with the next front moving in.  Always extra-curricular activities like teaching class, insulating the new building, Farm to Fork picnic meetings and on, must be spring.

Pictures of the Week

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Way too much time on a ladder

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Beautiful spring cover crops and freshly turned peppers beds, the Big Tops cresting the hill in the distance

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 10 #8, 3/21/13

What’s been going on!

First full day of Spring?  We haven’t had a cold spring since 2009 and this winter/spring transition is really beginning to work on my nerves or at least my aging body as I just don’t enjoy working outside in 40 degree temperatures and 20 mph winds like I used to.  Probably never really enjoyed it but at least didn’t grimace as much when seeing the forecast.

The fourteen day forecast is for below normal temperatures (our normal high is in the low 60’s right now), come on.  The long range forecast for summer has us above average in temperature and normal or slightly below normal rainfall.  As discussed in an earlier newsletter this is what climate change is going to look like for us in the next 50 years, erratic springs but warmer summers and longer fall seasons.  This is where careful record keeping and crop planning are critical for successful crops.  Instead of saying “hey it’s warm in January I think I will plant early” and then it gets hammered we know from experience that we will wait and plant on certain dates, no matter the current weather, and the crop will perform as it should a high percentage of the time.

Fortunately we have hedged our bets and seeded the tomatoes a week later than planned and they will be just perfect to slip into the ground next week in the little sliding tunnels and the big planting the third week of April when we should be past our last frost.  This is the art part of the art and science of agriculture.

Despite the cool temperatures we have gotten a fair amount done these past two weeks.  The re-building of the Big Tops after last summer’s storm damage is almost done, just a few more hoops to put in place and new plastic to haul out and position, ready to pull over the hoops in a few weeks.  Planting in the field is on schedule, with more to do tomorrow before the weekend’s rains.  Crops look OK, behind schedule but the beets, carrots, turnips, peas and radishes are all up.  The big pepper seeding in the greenhouse happened Monday, all 21 varieties and 3400 seeds.  So on we go but we may skip any outside work today, too damned cold.

Pictures of the Week

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Cucumber and tomato transplants waiting to go in the ground

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Tomato trellises being built prior to sliding the tunnel over it next week

What’s going to be at the market?

We will be skipping market this week but will back for Easter weekend.  See you then.

Alex and Betsy

If you know folks who you think would be interested in news of the farm then please feel free to forward this to them and encourage them to sign up at the website.

Peregrine Farm News Vol. 9 #21, 8/22/12

What’s been going on!

The in-between season when summer isn’t over but the early summer crops are and the first of the fall cool season crops are a month or so away; especially when the frequent rains and heavy morning dew put the disease death blow on the tomatoes, cucumbers, melons and other cucurbit family crops.  Thankfully we have peppers to span the gap.

I had a chef, new to the area, comment the other day about the fact that he was being offered winter squash by local farmers in July.  I explained that if we wait here to plant them so that in theory they are ready in September or later the likelihood of actually harvesting any is very low unless one sprays them regularly with fungicides and insecticides.  The beautiful thing about winter squash is it is a storage crop.

So while we continue to plant and wait on the fall crops the dismantling of the summer crops begins.  The first of the earliest tomatoes have already been taken out and soon the rest will follow along with the trellis and second planting of celosia, mowing to follow.

Don’t forget about our remaining farm dinners this week.  Tomorrow will be a great set of dishes from Bret at Elaine’s on Franklin you can see the special menu here.  Lastly, Saturday, we are going to have a fun dinner at Panzanella in Carrboro where we are co-farmers for their monthly farm dinner along with our friend and graduate of Peregrine Farm, Joann Gallagher of Castlemaine Farm.

Picture of the Week

Some very tired tomatoes

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 9 #17, 7/11/12

What’s been going on!

A glorious, cool, cloudy, rainy morning!  Still not a lot of rain yet (1.2 inches over the last two days plus an inch last Friday) but what we have gotten has been steady and slow, almost no runoff, just a good soaking.  We have been so dry that even with last Fridays and Mondays contributions we were able to till soil yesterday and seed more flowers and another round of summer cover crops.  We now hope that the rains forecast for the rest of the week will actually come and bring those seeds up.  I would love to see another two inches!

A beautiful gray day, old Zinnias turned under and seeded to a cover crop

We are all in full blown tomato mania.  While we have passed the peak of our harvest most everyone is getting ready for theirs.  Last Sundays tomato cooking class at A Southern Season was a full house, went really well, and folks went away with a new enthusiasm for a spectrum of tomato possibilities.  For the last several weeks we have been supplying tomatoes to every outlet possible.  For the next week or so you can find ours at both the Carrboro and Southern Village Weaver Street Markets; on the menus at Elaine’s on Franklin, Pazzo, IL Palio and GlassHalfull in Chapel Hill/Carrboro and at Nanas and Watts Grocery in Durham.  You can find links to all of the above here.  The Carrboro Farmers’ Market’s Tomato Day is this Saturday (more info below).

Of course we are all breathing a sigh of relief to be past the record setting heat wave of the last two weeks which culminated in the all-time record of six 100 degree days in a row at RDU.  There will be very few tomatoes at market the third and fourth weeks of August due to no fruit set these last two weeks.  When day temperatures exceed 85°F and night temperatures exceed 72°F, tomato flowers will abort.  July is definitely all about tomatoes, don’t miss enjoying them as much as you can.

The packing shed bulging with tomatoes

What’s going to be at the market?

The Carrboro Farmers’ Markets annual Tomato Day is this Saturday and we have expanded it to the entire town with restaurants and other businesses participating with specials.  Over 70 varieties to try and other samplings including tomato juice from us.

Tomatoes are still in full swing with good supply.   In reds we have an abundance of full flavored Big Beefs.  The flood of Cherokee Purples is here along with its cousins the Cherokee Green and a few Cherokee Chocolates.  A small supply of pink, low acid German Johnson.  Plenty of the fruity bi-color Striped Germans.  In orange/yellows there are Orange Blossoms and the beautiful Kellogg’s Breakfast.  In cherry types we have a better supply of Sungolds and the mixed Sungold cousins Sun Lemon (orange), Sun Peach (pink) and Sun Chocula (I did not make these names up) and the bi-colored elongated Blush.  The best supply we have ever had of the Italian Oxheart sauce tomatoes and beautiful Romas, if you want to make sauce, now’s the time.

The peppers are starting with Shishitos and Padrons for appetizers and a few Serranos and Jalapenos.  Sweet Red Onions and Basil to go with tomatoes!  Flat Leaf Italian Parsley.

Betsy and the flower department are still producing an amazing amount of beautiful stems.  The Crested Celosia wave is beginning to roll.  More long lasting Lisianthus, queen of cut flowers, mostly in purple with some pink and white.  The second cutting of Delphinium has started.  Lots of fragrant Oriental lilies in pink and white.  The Zinnia flood rolls on with the Sunflowers.  The airy and elegant Trachelium.  Annabelle Hydrangeas for drying.  Beautiful Bouquets!

As a reminder if there is anything that you would like for us to hold for you at market just let us know by e-mail, by the evening before, and we will be glad to put it aside for you.

Hope to see you all at the market!

Alex and Betsy

If you know folks who you think would be interested in news of the farm then please feel free to forward this to them and encourage them to sign up at the website.

Peregrine Farm News vol. 9 #16, 7/5/12

What’s been going on!

Hope you all had and good July 4th and are managing the heat well.  We spent the day with some early work before the heat set in (Betsy had to cut some flowers and I had to irrigate and attend to the turkeys) and then we hid out in the AC catching up on paperwork, reading and eating.  It is the peak of our tomato season and so there are lots of not-good-enough-for-public-consumption fruits crowding our kitchen counter.  Yesterday we made our first big batch of salsa for the season now that we also have serranos and red onions.  Betsy is headed towards making tomato juice and for dinner we took a cue from Ben Barker and grilled some fish then laid it on top of slices of what may be the biggest Striped German bi-colored tomato of the season (slices at least 6” across) and then topped it with some salsa fresca.  Do we have to go back to work today?

Speaking of tomatoes, if you haven’t already registered, our annual tomato class at A Southern Season is this Sunday.  In tandem with Craig LeHoullier who is the heirloom tomato guru who introduced Cherokee Purple, Chocolate and Green to the world, amongst others.  We talk tomatoes while Marilyn Markel cooks up a great three course meal using our tomatoes, wine included!  Not a bad way to spend another 100 degree afternoon.

The turkeys are three weeks old and it was time to let them outside.  The brooder building was designed for about 65 birds and having 83 in there, in this hot weather, makes it a bit tight.  As usual we pulled one of their field shelters in front of the brooder and connected the two together with sections of chicken wire.  To give them extra shade I also strung an old tarp across the gap.  Down came the front opening/gang plank and they were more than happy to get out and stretch their legs and wings.

With them out in the open we finally got a chance to get a count how many guinea hens we were sent by mistake and the number is eleven.  It turns out that the Barkers want a couple of them for pets and tick control over at their place.  We told them that was fine but we first had to choose the right pair and give them appropriate names.

These are the Guinea Hens Confit and Fricasee next to one of the turkeys

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 9 #14, 6/20/12

What’s been going on!

The summer solstice, longest day of the year, last day of spring, summer starts at 7:09 p.m., the heat started yesterday, had to happen sooner or later.  Tomorrow Betsy can start her annual chant “Now that the days are getting shorter, frost is just around the corner!”.  It has been a marvelous late spring with nights in the 50’s and low humidity but it will all soon be a dim memory as we head into the tunnel of summer heat and humidity.

Some good things come out of the right amount of summer heat.  Tomatoes that taste better than just about anywhere else in the country for example.  Without sun and warmth, the plants just don’t make enough sugars and other flavor components.  This is why greenhouse tomatoes or ones grown in the northern tier of the country, no matter what variety or how well tended, can never really have great flavor.

There is a balance though.  With too much heat and humidity, the plants stop setting fruit, there is more trouble with sun burned fruit (sunscald in the vernacular), hollow walls and blossom end rot when the plants just can’t move enough water up through the plant fast enough.  This is why our farmer friends in the most southern tier states have tomatoes in June and maybe early July and then pack it in for the season until it cools back down.

Fortunately we are entering tomato season at just the right time, plenty of fruit hanging on the vines waiting for the heat to finish the process.  We pick more each harvest day and soon the table will be overflowing with all of the colors, shapes and sizes.  Here’s to summer!

Picture of the Week

Tomatoes in the cool of the early morning, waiting for the heat to flavor them up

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 9 #5, 4/18/12

What’s been going on?

We made it past the cold weather without any real damage other than some fig leaves being burned a bit. 26 degrees on Thursday morning and 31 on Friday. As soon as it warmed up on Friday we began to slip the tomato transplants into the ground. Perfect day, not too hot and no wind to stress them while they are getting used to their new home. A nice watering in with the hose and then a deep irrigation a few days later and they look fantastic. Today is the next step for the peppers, we seed them into small cells to maximize space in the germination box and then move up only the best looking seedlings into larger cells to grow larger until they too go into the field in just about a month. Nearly 3000 plants to move up of thirty plus varieties. Another perfect day for this job too, cloudy and cool which will make the greenhouse conditions less brutal on the tiny plants as they recover from being pulled out of one tray and poked into another.

Finally a bit of rain last night after a solid week of irrigating to try and catch up on the surprisingly dry conditions. Things look much better including the onions that have looked like hell for weeks. The now annual water watch has begun. Just like last winter and spring (2010-2011) when we got fairly regular small rain events but never really enough to recharge the ground water we are in the same pattern this year. The creek is running well but the upper pond only came up about a foot over the winter. A month ago we began the process of filling the upper pond by using the irrigation system pump to move water from the lower pond. Over 140 hours of pumping later and the upper pond is full and at least six feet deeper than it had been. Hopefully we will not have to use it this summer but it feels comforting to have it there.

Picture of the Week

A tomatoes view of the world, “You want me to climb up to the top of that fence?”

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 9 #4, 4/11/12

What’s been going on?

You knew that it was coming, couldn’t go all the way through this warm spring without one last blast of cold weather, are you ready? Lots of people blinked and planted their tomatoes and other warm season crops, now they will be running around today trying to cover them or are just going to take the hit and replant, if they can. The if they can part is the one thing we can’t do. With over twenty varieties of tomatoes, some the only seeds we had, waiting to go in the ground, we just can’t gamble that way. Last week we had moved them all outside to harden off before they went to the field but this would be a little too hard. As it was they went through 29 degrees on Sunday morning and a few got a bit burned even with row cover over them but it was only supposed to be a low of 35 degrees. So with tonight’s low forecast to be 30 degrees here and knowing it can swing 5 degrees or more, we moved them all back into the greenhouse for safe keeping until Friday morning when we hope to finally put them into the ground.

The super early tomatoes in the little sliding tunnels will be just fine and we will protect them with an additional layer of row cover and clamp the plastic down to make them as warm as possible. We have been able to protect them down to as low as 20 degrees, which we had some years ago with the historic Easter freeze in April 2007. Hopefully this will not be as drastic a situation as that was but we are going into it with very similar conditions. So make sure you cover what you can tonight and be wary about tomorrow night too as sometimes we get fooled and the second night is the worst.

All at the same time we are now getting too dry and we need to spend the day setting up irrigation. We wait as long as possible in the spring to install the irrigation because it makes planting and cultivation more difficult once it’s in the way. We spent the last few days doing some final cultivation and now we can start running lines. Drip irrigation lines down every bed, sometimes two on crops like onions. Micro sprinkler lines down every third bed on the greens. Flush the main lines and then attach the headlines that run across the top of every field and flush those, to which we then attach either the drip or sprinkler lines and finally fill them up and make sure they are all working. There has never been a year we didn’t have to irrigate at some point in the season but we always wait until we have to.

First Wednesday afternoon market today (3:30-6:30), it will be cool and breezy but there are good reasons to come out besides the fresh produce. Bill Smith from Crooks Corner will be doing a cooking demonstration during market and then immediately after market there will be a Food Truck Rodeo fundraiser for the Farmer Food Share which is the group that collects extra produce from the Farmers’ market and then distributes it to the food banks and kitchens. Come on out for both the market and the fundraiser, see you there.

Picture of the Week

Warm tomato plants as far as the eye can see

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 9 #3, 4/5/12

What’s been going on?

One of those weeks when the whole body is sore after days of tugging and lifting and putting things together for the spring. One of the big jobs of the year is underway, preparation for planting the main field of tomatoes. Of course there are lots of steps involved in growing tomatoes that happen through the year beginning with soil preparation the fall before with mineral amendments, raising up beds and seeding the right cover crops that will mature at just the right time.

The week before planting would be enough work if we grew the tomatoes out in the open like most of the rest of the world with soil prep, drip irrigation lines, landscape fabric mulch and trellis construction having to be done first. For us there is one more job that has to be done before any of the above can proceed, covering “The Big Tops” with plastic. The Big Tops are our field scale multi-bay high tunnels that we brought in from England in 2004 to answer the foliar disease issues that were making it nearly impossible for us to grow tomatoes in the open. Named by our neighbor the first time we covered them because he said it looked like the Circus had come to town, not sure if he meant they looked like circus tents or we looked like a bunch of clowns covering them.

Every spring, a week before tomato planting day, we have to hope for a still morning to drag the 30′ X 100′ sheets of plastic over the top of the thirteen foot high bows and get them secured before the wind picks up. No easy task but with four patient people and lots of scrambling up and down ladders and tugging on ropes we can cover the four bays that are over the quarter acre in which the tomatoes will be planted. A perfect morning on Tuesday had us done with the job in just over 3 hours. By the end of the day tomorrow, all of the beds will be prepared and the trellises built, waiting for the tomato plants to be tucked in early next week.

Picture of the Week

The plastic “roofs” floating over the tomato beds

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