Peregrine Farm News Vol. 13 #14, 5/18/16

What’s been going on!

Another rainy week ahead, at least it is cool, so some solace.  We used the beautiful days leading up to yesterday to cultivate as much as we possibly could as the weeds were biblical after the previous wet period.  While we did not get everything perfectly weeded we did get to most of it.

Always too much to do in May and so we are a little behind in getting the big planting of tomatoes suckered and tied up for the first time.  Got a good start on it Monday but now it will be too damp to break off the shoots (suckers).  If we do it when it is really wet then the chances for disease to enter those wounds is very high so we will just have to wait until the sun comes back out.

The other big job we are trying to get to is preparation for the big pepper planting next week.  The plants look perfect and will be really happy to get in the ground.  Just before the rain started yesterday we tilled the nine beds that get covered with landscape fabric for all the hot and fussy varieties.  Today or tomorrow we can lay the drip lines and pin down the fabric so we will be ready to plant first thing next week.  That just leaves the rolling/crimping of the cover crop for the no-till sweet peppers.  Go, go, go!

Pictures of the Week

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Thousands of pepper plants ready to go

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Freshly tilled pepper beds on a really gray day

What’s going to be at the market?

Did you donate to RAFI?  Let’s talk this week.

Fewer options for lettuce this week with Little Gem (red and green), Red Leaf and maybe some Green Boston.  Really nice Escarole.  Beautiful Lacinato/Dinosaur/Cavalo Nero Kale.  Some more Spinach.  The last week for really fabulous Broccoli Raab and Yukina Savoy greens to round out the greens.

The last week for the finest Sugar Snap Peas on the planet!  More Beets with the bullseye striped Italian Chioggias, Red and Golden too.  Lots of beautiful Fennel.  Plenty of Radishes.  Cilantro, Dill and Italian Parsley.  Basil!  Green Onions.  More Cucumbers.

Slowly the flower department fills.  Beautiful tall Larkspur (annual delphinium).  Fragrant Stocks.  Bachelors Buttons and delicate Sapponaria.  Crepe paper like Poppies.  Amazing 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.  Just so you know, sometimes not everything listed will be at the Wednesday market.

Hope to see you all at the market!

Alex, Betsy and Jennie

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.

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