Week 22, 2014

I am officially old.  I changed clothes from work the other day donning my worn farm shorts and tee shirt.  Inevitably, I got distracted somewhere between changing socks and getting my farm sneakers on.  I remember slipping on my brown work shoes to bring them to the garage where my house Crocs reside.  Thinking as I did it to consolidate all my shoes in the garage for my return from the farm.  Unfashionably for me I never made the exchange for the farm shoes.  When I got to the farm and stuck my foot out the door to hit the ground running, I noticed my brown dress shoes, blue socks and work shorts.  I stared in disbelief for a minute and then it dawned on me.  I was officially old.  I did turn 40 this year but it hadn't hit home until I saw my brown dress shoes.  I did however, continue to finish the field work.  I figured that people couldn't see my feet from the road anyway.

The weeks are ticking by and crops are struggling with the weather to keep yielding (me too).  Kale has petered out, tomatoes are going down fast due to heat and the heavy rain a few weeks back.  Peppers are just starting to produce.  I have some in pots in the greenhouse and more out in the field.  I am just seeing where we get better yields.  Leeks are just turning ready.  We only had two weeks of sweet onions this year due to poor germinating seeds.  I planted some very late not sure of the outcome, but it looks like they won't size up until next year.  Our herbs have been doing great this year in the pots.  This was a good decision from last year and we have had a much better yield and consistency. 

I have been watching for some peaches this year and they were almost ready.  We had enough for about 1 week pickup.  I went by to check the status early this week and the entire crop was gone.  I'm not sure what took them but I couldn't find a trace.  Usually if it is critters they take a few bites and leave the seeds or half eaten fruit around.  Not this time.  I'm not sure what happened here.  There is always next year to hope for.  This year was bad for tree fruit.  No loquats either.  Our citrus have pretty much succumbed to citrus greening except for a few trees near the greenhouse which are infected. I am trying non-organically to keep them producing.  It would be really unfortunate to lose our great yielding lemon tree.  I'm not sure if we can keep them alive or not.  There are two olives on my tree this year.  This will be the second year of 4 years since planting that we have had two olives.  I only planted it on looks but I am always curious to see if they will ever yield an olive.  Two years when I ate one of the two that were on the tree, I learned that you can't eat olives off the tree.  Trust me on this one.  They apparently need to be brined before eating.  Which I know now for this year if they yield a harvestable fruit.  I'm not sure what I can do with two olives...maybe a martini? 

Our blueberries in pots yielded fairly well.  The boys love to go there first and check them.  Katie has discovered them as well and I could barely pull her away kicking and screaming because she couldn't find anymore to eat.  I hope to add some more for the farm for the benefit of our customers (as well as Katie's) in the near future.