Happy New Year! Week 6 2014

Things have gotten a little chilly here at Steed Farms.  We went camping on New Years (Anna, Nate, Noah and myself) at the farm.  This is the second year we've done it and it might be the last time we all sleep in one tent.  We barely fit without bumping into each other all night..  Jenn and Katie are smart and stay home.  We do have fun roasting hot dogs and trying to find animal eyes with the spot light.  We tracked down some spiders whose eyes were glowing bluish white.  I did hear a bunch of coyotes near midnight a little north and east of the farm but didn't see them.

I was able to disc in our summer cover crops and put in a winter cover crop finally last Saturday.  It was just in time for all the rain we had this week.  Thank the good Lord for all the rain!  It looks like it will do fine now and is already a couple inches tall.

The crops were a little off with the mostly hot weather and then sporadic cool days.  Some of the plants were stressing and getting some fungal spots.  Everything is growing fairly well except for the strawberries.  I tried them again this year and they are getting anthracnose spots on the older leaves.  When this happens the leaves fall off.  So I have small little plants with new leaves.  I haven't sprayed them with anything and should be but I haven't had a chance to.  I've been too busy removing yellow flowering wild radish from the field.  I thought last year it would make a good cover crop, and I think it was.  I didn't have the foresight to realize that it would go to seed and make my life miserable.  Everything we grow from seed looks just like it: arugula, diakons, raab, turnips, rutabaga.  I can't hoe the row because I can't tell the difference.  So I need to hand weed when they get older.  Lesson learned.

Here are some pictures from the farm...

carrots after weeding wild radish

before weeding wild radish

Week 2 produce

sugarcane and lemon to refresh from weeding

pigeon pea cover crops

Nate sneaking up with a camera