What’s been going on!
Busy week trying to take advantage of the amazingly cool weather, 54 degrees here on Wednesday morning! It is the mid-summer reset with all of the spring crops mowed and turned under and summer cover crops being seeded today before the next possible rains. New this year we will be trying out a seed drill to exactly place the seeds at the right depth and in good contact with the soil for best germination.
We used to be able to just spin the seeds out and lightly, but erratically, cover the bigger seeds and hope that a good rain would do the rest and cover them a bit more. Increasingly we have had poor stands, especially of summer cover crops because we would not get our usual thunderstorms, instead they would not get a good start with sometimes thin plant densities which allows the weeds to get a foothold underneath them.
We have known that if we could just use a precision drill to seed them it should be much better and more consistent, problem is a good seed drill is $7000 or more. This spring we joined a new Farmer Tool Sharing group that was still buying tools with a grant they received. We suggested that they get a small quality seed drill and they did! So today is the first test run for us and hopefully it will be the ticket!
Picture of the Week
Fancy new seed drill ready to go
What’s going to be at the market?
The big and long 4th of July weekend and we have lots of Tomatoes and other good things for barbeques, parties or the beach!
Tomatoes in full swing now. Red Big Beefs, Cherokee Purples and Green Cherokees. Yellow Orange Blossoms, Kellogg’s Breakfast and the high acid Russian Azoychka. The big bi-colored and sweet Striped Germans and pink German Johnsons. Sungolds, Black Cherries, Juliets a small sweet roma type and the sweet bi-colored Blush. Oxhearts and Romas for sauces.
Lettuce with the last of the red and green Little Gem, green Summer Crisp and probably the last of the nice little Salanova heads to make your salad mix. Petit Swiss Chard, tender leaves and stems. The last of the beautiful Lacinato Kale (a.k.a. Dinosaur Kale, Cavalo Nero…).
Sweet Red Onions. Tonnage of Cucumbers. Shishito peppers too! Basil and Cilantro.
Incredible white Lisianthus is back! More brilliant Zinnias. Plenty of bright Sunflowers. Fragrant Oriental Lilies are back too! Betsy’s 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. 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.
Do you grow all of your Azoychoka tomatoes under cover? It is an amazing tomato.
We do, and yes it is a great tomato surprising in it’s acidity.