Tag Archives: summer crops

Peregrine Farm News Vol.11 #13, 6/5/14

What’s been going on!

Thankfully June is here.  Not for the heat or the first tomatoes, even though that is a great incentive, but that May is over.  May is always the most frantic of months and depending on the weather, the crush can be spread out over a longer period of time or compacted as it was this year.

April fools us into a sense of control, crops are growing much better than their laggardly pace of late March and while the weeds are coming up too it seems an easy chore to knock them back.  The weather is not too hot so irrigation is not too pressing even if the rains are thin.  Planting goes apace and is only disturbed by too much rain.  There is more and more to harvest each week but it is never an overwhelming task.

Then comes May and Bam! all those crops we planted in March are ready to harvest and with warmer temperatures can’t wait.  Warmer temperatures means they need more water, which means more weeds and more plant growth so we need to tie up tomatoes more often and trellis flowers and mow and plant more and, and, and…

In about a week we will be able to slide into summer mode.  Blueberries will be done, all of the spring greens will essentially be overheated and finished, the massive onion crop will be drying in the greenhouse and other than a few succession plantings of flowers all of the summer crops are in the ground and rolling along.  There will be nearly an acre less to irrigate.  Harvest melts into steady pace of a daily cutting of flowers, two mornings a week of tomatoes and a few hours each on Wed. and Friday gathering in the remaining vegetables.  The increasingly hot afternoons will be spent in the shade either productively or not.  As much as I don’t like the heat of summer, the arrival of June is a welcome change.

Picture of the Week

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More signs of June, Campanula and Delphinium

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 10 #19, 6/12/13

What’s been going on!

While officially summer starts a week from Friday there are a few signals that always indicate to me that summer is really here.  Hot temperatures, shorts all day every day, multiple T-shirt days, light until 9:00, fireflies and most important to us real tomatoes!  The first day over 90 today, someone said the latest that has ever occurred, check, all the rest has been happening for some time but tomatoes until this week.

We have had a few ripe tomatoes over the last week or so but we waited until last night to have the first tomato sandwich dinner.  We each have our own versions but mine is BOT- bacon, our red onions and tomatoes.  Toasted bread, mayo, slices from the heart of the tomato, salt and pepper.  The rest of the tomato I cut into large chunks and have as a side to the sandwich with just a bit of salt so I can taste just the pure fruit and judge where we are in the season.  As to be expected the earliest fruit are not quite as juicy or full flavored as they will be later in the season when the heat really hits but are still so much better than any tomato we have had since our last ones nearly nine long months ago.  Let the debauchery begin.

The Farm to Fork picnic went off smoothly last Sunday, the monsoons moved out and the day was beautiful.  Some really great dishes were served up and the crowd was happy and spread out with lots of room to roam.  Our Smoked Turkey sausage crostini and Early Summer borscht was well received with many folks saying that it was their favorite dish.  We had a great time with Scott and Aubrey from Nana’s and thank them and everyone who participated to make it a great event and raise needed funds for new farmer training.

Picture of the Week

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Rob from Chicken Bridge Bakery was indicative of the enthusiasm and skills displayed at F2F

What’s going to be at the market? Continue reading →

5/19/04 Vol. 1 #10

OK I think that we have rounded the corner.  The peppers are all in and we have gotten caught up on flower planting as well- more zinnias, sunflowers, celosia as well as salvia, cosmos and dahlias.  Betsy is excited about the new dahlias partly because they are a new crop for us and this is a new kind of dahlia as well.  We even managed to finally get the basil in the ground and the celeriac too!  Part of the reason that the peppers are such a job (beyond the fact that there are 17 one hundred foot long beds with 2200 plants) is that almost two thirds of them we plant using system called “no-till”.  The less we turn the soil over the less organic matter we lose and the better the soil micro life likes it.  Every time we till the soil it’s like opening the draft on a woodstove and causes the organic matter in the soil to decompose faster.  Some crops we have to till for a good seed bed but others we can just plant directly into the remnants of the huge cover crops that we have grown over the winter.  In effect we grow our fertilizer and mulch right in place instead of hauling it in.  We have been using this technique for nine years now and have expanded it to include the late tomatoes, winter squash and are experimenting with some of the flowers.  It is a tried and true method used by corn and soybean farmers but it is very new to vegetables.  The slow part for us it that we have to plant by hand into a slit that the tractor makes in the cover crop residues, sometimes the slit is better than others and it takes at least twice a long to plant as the ones that we do on landscape fabric.  In the long run though not only is it better for the soil but we have found that our sweet bell peppers perform better.

This week we also began a research project with some NC State grad students on beneficial insects.  They are planting some tomatoes and certain cover crops down in our bottom field and will be seeing what good and bad bugs are attracted by the different crops.  This is one of many projects that we have hosted over the years with NC State.  It’s good for us because we are exposed to all kinds of new ideas and good for them because they get out onto real farms, which is different than doing projects on research stations.  It is hard to create  the kinds of crop mix and interactions that we have here back at the research station.

More weeding, trellising, and lots of irrigating going on.  It is really beginning to feel like a drought year at least in the way we are having to water crops, but that can change quickly.  The turkeys are doing great, trying to fly around now and we have put roosting bars into the Poultry Villa now so that they have a place to fly up to and sleep on.

Picture of the Week
The pepper field, hot peppers on the landscape fabric and the sweet bells in the greenish looking cover crop residue at the top of the field.  In a couple of months it will look like the picture on page 62 of Magnolia Grill’s Not Afraid of Flavor

6/22/05 Vol. 2 #16

Well we made it past the longest day of the year and now it’s all downhill to the finish line.  As I was just walking around the farm this morning (very early) opening and closing valves for irrigation I was able to review all of the new trial crops for this season.  The report is mixed.  The artichoke plants look good and growing well but Betsy says she thinks we probably didn’t get them in early enough to make many “chokes” as they need to have more chilling hours than they got, we’ll see.  The new blackberries are sending up nice strong new canes for next years production.  The sweet corn test is looking pretty bad.  The first two plantings are thin as the germination was poor in the unusually cold soils that we had and the third planting the wild turkeys and crows picked all of the seed out of the ground before it came up (this is a common problem for corn growers).  I re seeded it and just chased more crows out of the field.  The rhubarb is looking pretty good.  They sent the plants too late in the spring for my liking but two thirds of them are up and looking good, maybe we finally found the right place for them!  Finally the new asparagus planting is hanging in there, I wish it looked a little more robust but at least they are still sending up new shoots, we started to irrigate them this week and that should help.

It is getting mighty dry out there and we are pumping water every day now.  We have the ability to irrigate every last corner of the farm and at this time of year all crops have drip irrigation lines running down the middle of every bed.  This is the most efficient way for us to water both from a volume of water standpoint but also it is very energy efficient to pump water for this low pressure system.  The problem right now is that we have about 17,000 feet of line out there and are pumping roughly 10,000 gallons a day, every day!  This is more water than our pond and creek supply on a daily basis.  Soon we will have fewer crops to water (as the last of the spring crops come out) so we can cut back on the number of lines but it always makes me nervous when the pond is going down and there is no good chance of rain in sight.

Blueberry season is coming to a close and now we can put the staff back on other chores.  Yesterday we worked on taking down old and putting up new flower trellis’ and began to build the last of the pepper trellis.  We also cleaned out the turkey brooder house in preparation for the next batch that is supposed to be here tomorrow.  These 35 broad breasted bronzes are for those folks who like fifteen to twenty five pound birds.  Today may be the last berry harvest for the year, if not Friday for sure.

Picture of the Week
Peppers no-till and on landscape fabric, trellised straight and tall!