Season Start 2015-2016 Week 1

The good news and bad news...Our first week of the season's pick-ups is already here and I am rather reluctantly getting on the blog to create a post.  I am looking forward to this year's produce, but I must admit that blogging about it isn't as fun as working out at the farm.

Our start has been a mixture of good news and bad, as it goes with much in the way of farming.  We got a really good jump on the season.  Tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant were all started well early and we already have fruit on the plants.  This is about 2-3 months early as I can remember it from last season.  I planted a new variety of corn that was able to germinate in cool soil but apparently it was not a good pick.  This was the first time I tried sweet corn for a fall crop.  The good news is that it is ready now; the bad news is that it only developed 2-4 inch ears.  I'm not sure what went wrong on that variety.  I guess I should do a fall sweet corn trial next year to find a variety that will work for our location.  The other bad news is that every fall is different here so it makes trying to pick an all around variety a little difficult.

We had a very nice cool spell period with low humidity early on when we planted the squashes.  I planted yellow, zucchini, and star burst (patty pan, or scallop) squash.  The good news is that this was the best year ever for our yellow and patty pan; that bad news is that the best harvest was about 2-3 weeks ago.

Our sweet potatoes were started out by cuttings that I made from volunteer runners in the field from last year.  We doubled the amount we planted from our trial last year.  The good news is that the roots are growing much straighter this year since I didn't start them out in liner trays; the bad news is that I might have used too much organic fertilizer as the roots aren't as developed as last year.  We got loads of top growth but the yield seems a bit too low.

We started a fall crop of red potatoes this year.  I thought I would get a great early start to the crop; good news.  The bad news is that there must have been some sprout inhibitor on them.  I waited 6-8 weeks and they never formed sprouts, then they rotted.  We will try again early spring.

Overall, we have had more good news than bad.  I hope the rest of the season progresses with more good news than bad.