Peregrine Farm News Vol. 8 #11, 6/1/11

What’s been going on?

Welcome to June, ugh! I thought June was the gentle transition to summer and July and ugh. The forecast has it dropping to 89 next Tuesday, the average high for July, woohoo! Alright too early for the bad summer weather attitude, I knew if I waxed too much about how perfect the spring had been that it would jinx the whole thing.

So let’s find the silver lining. The blueberries are ripening fast and the heat makes them even sweeter. We have had one of the largest picking crews working the bushes we have ever assembled, up to 10 some days, and they are handling the heat well even though that last hour before lunch slows them down some. Peppers are loving this weather and growing fast, soon we will need to start trellising them before they fall over in a storm. Tomatoes too, this is the time of year when we have to go through and tie them up every week lest they flop over into the row and maybe break a branch off heavy with green fruit. Betsy is happy as well, the summer flowers almost bloom as you watch them, sometimes she has to cut sunflowers twice a day.

While last week was about trying to salvage the end of the cool season crops, this week is full on acceptance that the party is over and it is time to clean up and move on. The spring vegetable field only has a few beds of beets, carrots and a few radishes left, the rest mowed and turned under. The overwintered flower field looks the same with just a few rows of late Bachelors Buttons and larkspur remaining. The lettuce field not only has only a handful of beds left but the rest has already been replanted to sunflowers, zinnias and other heat loving flowers.

Such are the seasons in North Carolina, distinct and abrupt. Our farming friends further north plant it all when it thaws out and then it all happens at one time in mid summer and they run hard in the long days to bring it all in before it gets cold again. No cool season, warm season cool season, it is just either the growing season or not. Lettuce and spinach, tomatoes and peppers all at the same time. Not sure which I would prefer?

Picture of the Week

New sunflowers, celosia and zinnias on the heels of the last lettuce in the background

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 8 #10, 5/25/11

What’s been going on?

Looks like another monumental blueberry crop, last years was so small it hardly registered. This year there are a lot of berries and they are big starting out. We have had five or six folks each day picking and have not made it all the way across the planting yet. We knew this heat would push them hard and make them ripen fast and it has. A good group of folks picking which usually adds new interesting conversations to our usual mix but this group is timid so far and we will need to loosen them up, maybe they are concentrating so hard on picking that they can’t talk at the same time.

The first real week of irrigation this year and we are trying hard to keep the last of the spring greens happy. We use little micro-sprinklers in the lettuce and spinach and other spring vegetables. They put out a fairly fine mist so we try and water mid afternoon so they get some evaporative cooling but don’t go into the night too wet underneath the plants. There is a fine line between enough moisture and too much. Too much gives us bottom rot in the lettuce, too little and the plants wilt and the stress causes them to get bitter and go to seed. We usually end up losing some to bottom rot but it is better than having it all get bitter. This last week of May is always a dance before we just give in and say it’s time for summer crops.

The daily search is on for the first ripe tomato. I slip by the early tomato tunnels several times a day, ostensibly checking irrigation or some other excuse but really I am looking for some pink color. It happens fast and we have been able to eat the first one this last week of May for several years now. The plants look as good as we have ever had and there is a lot of fruit set on them. I usually take the first one around the blueberry field and cut slices off for the pickers to savor if it is large enough, otherwise Betsy and I will quickly consume it down at the packing shed or out in the field where ever I find her at the time. Come on now, we are ready for a real tomato!

Picture of the Week

There is a lot of picking to be done

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 8 #9, 5/18/11

What’s been going on?

Well it looks as if the honeymoon is about over. This fantastic run of 70 degree weather and the near perfect spring run up to summer looks to be ending this weekend, had to happen sooner or later. We have been searching our now not so nimble brains to remember when we ever had such a marvelous spring in the 30 years we have been farming and can’t. You know we usually have crazy swings up and down in temperature and rainfall from March to May which wreaks havoc on the cool season crops like lettuce and, if too cool, the same to the nascent warm season crops struggling to believe it will actually ever get warm. We vaguely recall one six or seven years ago that had a smooth rise in temperatures but was irregular in precipitation so I will have to find that stone I etch important things on and scratch Spring 2011 on it.

The warmer weather coming next week will be just in time to sweeten up the blueberries which are hanging heavy on the bushes. We have been trying to get in and get the field all mowed up so the picking conditions will be comfortable, the regular rains have made the grass very happy and the broken tractor mower has not helped. Finally got the mower fixed yesterday so we are trying to get caught up on some really overgrown areas. Fortunately Betsy’s riding lawnmower has kept our heads above the grass so far. She reports that as she has been mowing by the blueberries that she has had to stop a few times to eat the first ripe ones!

Now that the peppers are all in the ground we are into the busy but steady season on farm chores. Tying up and suckering all the tomatoes, trellising flowers, taking out the earliest of the spring crops to make way for later season ones, cultivating and weeding when the soil gets dry enough to do so. This is the time of year that between harvesting and all the rest we feel really good if we can just barely keep up, we feel OK if a few things slip past us for awhile. We are teetering between really good and OK.

Picture of the Week

If we lived in the Salinas Valley (the nations salad bowl) it would look like this everyday. Spring giving way to summer.

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 8 #8, 5/11/11

What’s been going on?

Betsy walks outside yesterday morning and says the cicadas are so loud it sounds like Police sirens. I head out to work a bit later and they are completely silent, crazy. In general the din builds through the day until it is an eerie alien roar. Interestingly we don’t really see a lot around except for all the holes in the ground where they have emerged and then of course the cats have to bring them in the house. They say they will be around a month and then it will be 13 years until the next explosion.

Busy week, peppers begin to go in the ground today. The fabric and irrigation lines went down on Monday over the prepared beds. These raised beds will hold all the fussy hot and exotic peppers because we feel they need the extra warmth and better drained soil of a raised bed. The staff will start planting those beds this morning while I am finishing getting the rest of the field ready. The majority of the sweet peppers we will plant, no-till, into the rolled cover crop that grew their last winter. We had a monster cover crop of rye and hairy vetch to roll down and now I need to cut the slits into the mulch so they can tuck the plants in. Hopefully by the end of the tomorrow all the plants will be in the ground. Perfect conditions for transplanting, the soil has warmed nicely (which the peppers need), it will be overcast and not too hot and those plants will just take off.

Another big project was checked off the list this week which give us much relief. Despite what has been nearly perfect weekly rains this spring we are still over four inches behind on rainfall for the year and finished last year eight inches down. So while the annual crops are happy the ground water is not. Our upper pond never filled over the winter and so we are in the process of filling it from the lower pond. The crux has been we have to fill the lower pond from the creek.

Years ago we installed a gravity feed line that runs 900 feet down the field and into the pond. It worked OK but never enough flow and it would stop running from time to time. So a month ago we rented a trencher and cut a new line in, using a transit to make sure the fall was right and then buried new two inch PVC pipe. Finally last Friday we finished up the connections and started it running. It now runs with great flow and we feel comfortable that we can easily refill the lower pond. Water is the second most limiting resource on the farm after labor and so we are feeling more secure than we have in some years. Let’s hope it keeps raining each week.

Picture of the Week

The trench runs 700′ to the far tree line and then 200 more feet to the creek

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 8 #7, 5/4/11

What’s been going on?

Weather alert- this years Blackberry winter will occur today and tomorrow. My father called this last cold snap in May “Blackberry winter” because it always happens when the wild blackberries are blooming. Looks like 40 degrees or even high 30’s here tonight and then another cold night Thursday. Our friends who farm in central Texas called last night in a panic because they have an acre and a half of zinnias and celosia planted and it was going to be in the high 30’s which, as farmers know, could mean frost if the forecast is slightly off. They were pulling out the covers to protect it all!

No such extreme actions here at Peregrine Farm as everything we have in the ground has seen cool temperatures and we know that after this we are into the steady sure warming of May. Next week is pepper planting week and they will be happy to have avoided yet another Blackberry winter. Peppers, second only to Eggplant, hate cold soil and air temperatures and will just sulk if planted too early in the season. Our belief is that a happy pepper is one that goes into warmer soil and continues the grow vigorously, sure they will grow and make peppers if you plant them early but probably not as well if one waited just a week or two.

Sometimes the frenzy of spring has nothing to do with crops and crop care. I told Jennie the other day, who has seen me wear a tool belt a lot this spring, that really my job is Maintenance Man. Sure farmers are supposed to spend the winter fixing things and preparing the tools for the busy season ahead but sometimes the problems are not apparent until you start using the equipment in the spring. The big one so far was the rebuilding of the big walk-in cooler (last week) but yesterday was a classic breakdown as I started to mow the last of the winter cover crops and tore up a universal joint on the mower, arghh!! Parts ordered and I will have it fixed next week, not too bad, sometimes these repairs can drag on for weeks waiting for parts. Now we will just hope that nothing else breaks down, soon.

Picture of the Week

Sweet Willam in the early morning light

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 8 #6, 4/29/11

What’s been going on?

Most weeks this time of year are pretty full but this one feels more so (hence another late newsletter). We are going full steam on all fronts now with Wednesday market added on and this week the deliveries of lettuce to Weaver Street Market stores in Carrboro and Southern Village. This is our 20th spring season of providing lettuce to Weaver Street Market, maybe I will get a silver watch someday. In some ways this wholesale component of our farm is a remnant of the old days when the Farmers Market was not as robust and the restaurants had not yet caught on to the better flavor and quality of local ingredients. We had to produce for grocery stores to generate enough revenue to stay in business.

Almost none of the farmers at the markets these days grow for wholesale and many even eschew working with restaurants. It is a testament to how good the Farmers Markets and CSA’s have been to the bottom line of these farm businesses. Even we have scaled back from four stores to just Weaver Street and the number of products we provide them, really only lettuce and flowers now. There are several good aspects to growing for them, one is it makes us work in a more precise way which gives a tempo to the whole farm. It is like cooking dinner, you have to have all the dishes done at the same time or you can’t sit down to eat. If we say we will have all the lettuce for the stores on a certain day and for a so many weeks, then we better plan, plant and harvest exactly that. Farmers’ Markets and CSA’s allow you to be more relaxed. No lettuce this week? You just won’t have it at market (or in the CSA boxes) and no one will know or really care, you just show up with what you have.

Another important part of having the grocery store customers is it diversifies our marketing options. In seasons like this one is shaping up to be, when every turnip and beet seed germinated, we can offer them our excess production when there is no way the markets or restaurants could use that much product. We are delivering there anyway and so the extra step to find a home for otherwise homeless vegetables is not very big. Many farmers will wear themselves out trying to move the few extra boxes of something leftover from market and in most cases it is not worth the time or money, better off just going home and getting something done on the farm.

Now someday, as we begin to scale Peregrine Farm back and head into our golden years (after I get that silver watch), we will probably even let the wholesale business go too. By then we will just be old characters at the Market, serving up what produce we decide we want to grow that year. Until then I am off to cut lettuce!

Picture of the Week

Lettuce in the early morning light

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 8 #5, 4/20/11

What’s been going on?

Interesting Farm Tour this year. Saturday was a bit odd and at times tense with the storms moving through. We were very fortunate to just receive a very intense down pour with just a little bit of wind following it. We feel for all of those folks east of here that received the brunt of the storms, clean up is always hell. To be expected our Saturday crowd was small but dedicated, the Sunday visitors made up for it with gusto. Great folks both days but the Sunday tourees were reveling in the beautiful day and we had great discussions on all topics related to sustainable agriculture and farm life.

Busy weeks now. Today is tomato planting day and our first Wednesday market. I have spent the last part of the morning drawing up the map of where the nearly 1000 plants will go. “Only” fifteen varieties this year but the field that they are in, along with the edge effect of the Big Tops (more water on the side beds than the middle ones) dictates careful placement. Some can take extra water, like the Romas and Big Beefs. Some have to be protected in the middle like the Sun Golds and Striped Germans. The varieties that are new or we don’t grow a lot of need to be on the end we pick from so we can keep a close eye on them. Which ones will do best in the bit of heavy soil on the far corner? It is never perfect but the die has been cast.

Earth Day on Friday and today is the one year anniversary of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, kind of polar opposites. We think often of the impact of that spill on such a important and vibrant ecosystem and what the unknown long term effects will be on the area and it’s residents. It will be easy to lose track of that disaster as it leaves the news but I think we will be reminded at least each year on it’s anniversary which maybe will make Earth Day seem even more relevant as time goes on. Makes us even more committed to doing the best job we can with this piece of land that we are the temporary stewards of. OK, off to plant tomatoes.

Picture of the Week

Tomato transplants marching to the horizon

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 8 #4, 4/14/11

What’s been going on?

We are hurtling towards both the Farm Tour and tomato planting day. Yesterday was truly filled to the brim, hence the late newsletter. The goal was to get all four of the tomato Big Tops covered so we could get on with bed preparation and trellis building. Hard to find a windless day this time of year so we hit it running at 8:00 while it was still. We got the first two covered and the wind picked up. We paused and the wind slowed some so we moved on, we did have a few small bursts of air that made us question our decision but marched on and we were finished by noon.

The afternoon was filled with the final tilling of the soil and some mowing of the cover crops in the aisles so that today we could start to lay irrigation lines and landscape fabric to cover and warm the soil. These jobs always involve tangential elements like reconfiguring the tines on the rototiller to till a narrow bed top. While set up in this way it is also time to turn under the cover crop for the pepper beds which will be planted in a month. By the end of yesterday it was all ready for fabric and by the end of today we are ready to build trellis.

We spent the early part of the week getting everything cleaned up for the Farm Tour this weekend. Plenty of picking up to do after the winter and the first mowing of the season to spiff the joint up. Looks like rain for Saturday but you never know how the afternoon will shape up. Sunday looks like great weather and we will have Sheri Castle here talking cooking and signing her new book “The New Southern Garden Cookbook“. The Tour is 1:00-5:00 Saturday and Sunday, we look forward to seeing you on the farm.

Picture of the Week

Freshly tilled pepper beds in the foreground, 5 foot high cover crops and the tomato Big Tops

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 8 #3, 4/6/11

What’s been going on?

April always seems to be filled with events and this month is no exception. Only five days old and we have already had two college classes out to tour the farm and talk sustainable agriculture. Thursday Ben Barker from Magnolia Grill and I will be teaching a class at UNC called “Sustainability: Both sides of the Kitchen Door” where we will be talking about our businesses, sustainability and our 26 years of working together.

Monday night was the launch party for our friend Sheri Castle’s beautiful new cookbook “The New Southern Garden Cookbook“. You will know Sheri from cooking demonstrations at the Carrboro Farmers’ Market and have maybe taken a cooking class from her as well. She will be doing a cooking demo and book signing at market on April 30th and will be at the farm on Sunday of the Farm Tour (the 17th) to talk veggies and sign books too!

Definitely cookbook month, April. In addition to Sheri’s book our friends and customers Sarah Foster of Foster’s Market and Andrea Ruesing of Lantern Restaurant both have new books out. Sarah’s book “Southern Kitchen is an all-inclusive collection of Southern cooking in which simple feasts meet artisanal ingredients” Andrea’s first book is “Cooking in the Moment, a Year of Seasonal Recipes” also promises to give lots of tips for those who are shopping farmers’ markets and eating local food. We haven’t had a chance to leaf through either of these books but I am sure they will be great.

There are a lot more events coming this month but the big one on the horizon is the 16th Annual Farm Piedmont Tour, April 16th and 17th. Founded by Betsy, Weaver Street Market and Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA) it is now the largest tour of it’s kind in the country. Hard to find time to farm when all this is going on. Better start cleaning up now for the tour!

Picture of the Week


A frosty morning in the turnips, hopefully the last below 32 degrees

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 8 #2, 4/1/11

What’s been going on?

April fools day, well we’ve been fooled all week by the weather that’s for sure. 26 degrees on Tuesday morning, to be expected in late spring. We covered the early tunnel tomatoes and everybody was fine, the blueberries will let us know how they did, we could be fooled. What really fooled us this week was the rain. Looked like a rain day on Monday and we only got a tenth of an inch. Looked like a rain day on Wednesday and we got a great rain of just over an inch. Looked like rain for sure yesterday afternoon so had the staff only work a half a day and we barely got any water from the sky. Hard to call sometimes and we just don’t have much inside work right now.

It’s like that in spring. You try and have a plan for the week and the extremes of weather really decide what you will do. Fortunately the staff understands, they would rather work and make some money but they know if it is too wet there are only so many things we can do. Can’t till soil, can’t cultivate, etc. So it’s late spring chainsaw season. There is always a field edge to clean up/fight back and when it’s a cold morning a little brush fire is a welcome thing. So Tuesday we worked over the edge of the woods at the very top of the farm, it has probably been 15 years since we did it last. This morning it will be some firewood cutting until it warms up and then we can harvest a bit for market. So it goes.

Great staff this year, like all years it seems. Glenn is back for his third season and has taken the reins of responsibility in hand. Jennie is new to us this year but has been working on farms in the area for several years. They are doing an excellent job and everything really is in order. I just wish we had more to do right now. Now that really is an April fools joke because in a few weeks we will be overwhelmed with work and begging for a break.

Picture of the Week

A wet day but the peas and the beets really like it.

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