Season Start 2012-13

Its hard to believe but the new season is upon us.  I have been somewhat reluctant to start the first blog post of the season this year.  I guess time is at a premium and leisure time to sit and write a blog is scarce.  Anyway, the first season pickup is tomorrow so I thought I can't delay it any longer. 

This summer I have converted out previously ornamental producing ground that has just been holding plants for the past three plus years into new vegetable ground.  I used the frontend loader to scrape off the plants and then ripped up the groundcover.  I then cut out the irrigation and converted it to drip lines.  It was very heartbreaking to see our plant blocks reverting back to bare ground after all the work and money we spent to put groundcover and irrigation lines in to grow plants.  But now it is being utilized to produce food and better yet, is that these vegetable blocks will be on a timer so I can set up the irrigation without being there everyday to turn on and off water.  I used tree and leaf litter from the prunings along the power lines that was done nearby and  placed a couple of inches of the organic matter on top and tilled it in.  I then planted cowpeas and surghum x sudan grass and tilled that in.  We then had tons of rain and I watched as nearly all the cowpeas nearly drowned.  I have never seen that much water standing for so long at the farm.  Eventually the waters subsided and I was able to start our season off.  I had made a plan B thinking that I might not be able to work the ground for planting but things worked out alright. 

We have had an interesting summer to say the least.  Our farm was burglarized twice and my shop was broken into with almost all my tools that were worth anything stolen.  My work truck was totaled after someone ran a red light and T-boned me.  Then a windstorm knocked a tree into the mobile home and smashed out a window and the high winds ripped off the plastic on a greenhouse and crushed the roof frame.  All this happened in the span of about a month.  We have not taken care of the damage to the greenhouse yet but it is somewhere down on the list of things to do.  My Dad asks how can I deal with all this and keep going.  My reply is faith, prayers, and grace.  I readily accept the good things from the Lord, I should try just as readily to accept the trials.  Our bible memory verse for a while was from Job.  "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; Blessed be the name of the Lord."   But summer is now behind us and the season is starting out looking good.  And there are always blessings to enjoy like the birth of Katherine Rose, our #4, born on 11/4 at 10:44 weight 7 lb 4 oz. 

The weather since things have gone into the ground has been great for growing minus some light rains which always is better than many irrigations.  I'm not sure why but one rain event is like the effect of a dozen irrigations.  The plants are growing fine otherwise and the breaking of new ground helps.  This year I used the tractor to form beds with the wheels.  I am gearing up for tractor use later on and practicing making rows.  I will need to use less hand labor if we want to do more with less.  Over the summer I bought a tactor mounted bean/corn seed planter from a retiring farmer.  I used it to plant the beans in the bed and it worked like a charm.  I was able to offset it on the tractor and went down one side of the bed to plant a row and turned around and finished the other row in the bed at just the right spacing.  I am super excited to plant beans now and can't wait to try it for the corn.  I also bought an antique looking transplanter a the same time.  I tried to use it with my brother and broke the chain that drove the wheel.  I let him take it home to work on during his spare time.  When it was working it was doing a good job when it planted a plant (which was about one in ten times).  We need to tweak it and get some practice in with it.  I think it will be ready for next year's season and if working properly it will save tons of time.

We have planted beans, cucumbers, turnips, arugula, broc. raab, diakon radish, bok choy, komatsuna, carrots, kohlrabi, mustards, mizuna, tomato, kale, collards, cabbage in the field or greenhouse.  Everything but the cucumbers are doing great.  I really need a downey mildew resistant cucumber.  I haven't found one yet. 

We are looking forward to meeting with all the old and new supporters showing up tomorrow morning and starting twenty four weeks of fresh, local, organic produce.  We are also starting a delivery route tomorrow for the first time.  We will see how that goes.  I'll blog about it with lots of pictures from the summer that I didn't include with this post.