Week 1, 2017-18 Season

Harvest is set for this Saturday.  Looks like we will have loads of zucchini and yellow squash.  The green beans surprised with a good harvest of beautiful pods for this weekend.  Broccoli raab looks like it might have been a week early.  We will see if we can harvest enough for everyone.  Strawberries are starting to flower.  This is about a month earlier than last year.  To round out the baskets are diakon, turnips (which look excellent), roselle, patty pan squash, oregano, and garlic chives.  Things are looking good and doing well as the season starts.

We will be planting cabbage, broccoli, scallions, more bok choi, lettuce, and cauliflower grown from our own transplants for future harvests.   

Week 16, Season 2016-2017

We have reached the two thirds point of the season and the growing is going well.  Cabbage, snow peas, red beets, cauliflower, and komatsuna will be picking this weekend for the first time this season.  I just planted corn, beans, and a few different squash this week.  I will be transplanting peppers, lettuce, cabbage, bok choi, kale (finally) and a few different items this week.  I also hope to plant cantaloupe and melon transplants and Seminole pumpkin seeds to finish out all this year's plantings.  Cucumbers were planted in the greenhouse this week.  Potatoes are up and running and looking fine.  The cauliflower was doing amazing and we had some that were about 10-12 inch heads.  I came back after the rainy days and they had hideous black spots all over the heads and I had to cut and toss them over the fence to the cattle.  It was a trial as we have done poorly in the past, so I was relieved that I actually could grow them.  We will be able to harvest about half of the trial section and I now will add that to our list of plants to pursue.
This is probably our last week of sweet potato harvests and am happy that we got about 13 weeks out of our planting.  I found a great recipe for you to try to say farewell to the sweet potatoes.  I serendipitously ran across a sweet potato soup recipe that was delicious and extremely easy.  It was in Cook's Illustrated magazine.  Did you know that if you have a Hillsborough County library card you can download tons of magazines to your reading device for free!  I happened to figure this out two weeks ago and was pursuing the magazine rack and saw Cook's Ill. and low and behold there was a great recipe for this soup.  All you need is sweet potatoes, shallots (I used onions), butter, thyme, and water.  That is it. I made it for a bunch of friends along with smoked ribs and everyone commented on how great the soup was.  Here is a link to the recipe.  https://www.cooksillustrated.com/videos/3101-sweet-potato-soup  Enjoy!    

Season Beginnings 2016-17

Our short summer is over at the farm and we are gearing up for this season.  In some of the fields the cover crops are growing nicely.  In a couple of fields we are trying to control the worst weeds (nutsedge and cogongrass) with herbicides which will not be planted back for three years.  We are cleaning up the greenhouse for tomatoes and cucumbers.  We are expanding our carrot raised bed and are adding a bed for beets.  This worked out well last year and hopefully it will do well this season.

We have already planted the sweet potatoes in white plastic mulch.  This is the first annual crop to begin when the season starts.  I have nice time posts that remind when to plant different crops.  Tomato, pepper, eggplant, onions and sweet potatoes need to be started by Anna's birthday, mid-August.  The cool season crops (cabbage, collards, broccoli) should be done by my birthday in early September.  With all these moving parts, birthdays help me to keep things in order.

All our seeds were ordered on the same night.  We used four different sources: Johnny's Seeds, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Seedway, and New England Seeds.  I like to see who can deliver to the house first.  This year it was Johnny's Seeds that showed up first.  Next by a day it was SESE.  A couple of days later we got the Seedway Seeds in.  Then, just about when I was about to make a call, NE Seeds showed up.  Congratulations Johnny's you did it again!  You've won the coveted Steed Farm-Seed Ship Showdown!

We have ordered our strawberries for October.  We went with 'Camino Real' again for this year as they produced well for the varmints last year.  Hopefully WE can eat some this year.  I cleared the surrounding fields to help reduce the cover that the animals can hide in.  Last season's end when I was turning the cover crop next to the field where we were producing, there were about 30 large rats that were in the field running for cover from the mower heading their way.  I figured it made a nice place to hide for other critters too.  This year they have a lot less places to hide.

I have found a potato seed producer in New York and am hoping that we can get potato seeds shipped to us for the early winter.  We have struggled with finding a source for a few years due to our small quantity we need.  Two years ago we got them too late, and last year our seed never sprouted after we planted them in the late fall.  We planted again in the spring and got a little production but I feel it was a little too hot to get a good crop.  I believe this will be a good year for potatoes as well.  Always got to have hope and faith!

Sun hemp cover crop.

A row of newly planted SWEET potatoes.

Week 18, Season 2015-16

We have a new addition to Steed Farms! Welcome Paul Joseph, Friday 3/11/16, 10:30 pm, 7 lb 5 oz. 19 inches long.  Congratulations also to Jennifer who the doctor said should teach classes in proper birthing techniques.  We are excited at his arrival and a little tired as well.  It was interesting juggling a trip to the hospital, a farm harvest, and deliveries, both human and produce.  But we made it through.  Thanks also to my Dad who volunteered to help out with the harvest.

In the last month I have planted bell peppers, leeks, green beans, corn, southern peas, the last of the lettuces, beets, more carrots, more cabbage, watermelons, cantaloupes, cherry tomatoes, and cucumbers.  Hopefully we will start to see some of this produce arriving to the tables for pick up in the next months, and I continually hope that one season we might harvest melons.  I nearly gave up on organic strawberries and finally figured things out, so I still hope in the melons that things will come together correctly to get a harvest.  In fact, just the other week I was driving the tractor through the field from last year and there were two harvestable size watermelons sitting in the field.  I brought them home and they were past ripeness, so I guess there is possibility still.

We are entering our typical spring slow down but it looks like we are in a little better shape this year.  We will have onions and potatoes to fill in the gaps of some of the things like lettuce that we won't see until next year.  It is nice to be finished with planting for this year as I should be done this weekend with everything in the field or greenhouse until we start planting again in the late summer for our next season.  Yeah!

Week 10, 2014-15

We are approaching the halfway point of the season, which is hard to believe.  We are having varying degrees of success with different crops.  This year the lettuce is looking great, whereas last year we struggled to produce a couple weeks of lettuce.  We are now into our third week of lettuce and hopefully it will remain strong.  Broccoli is intermittent and started off poorly with a hungry rabbit.  We have had two weeks of harvest and will have to wait a few more for another round.  Last year the tomatoes were great with cherry and larger fruiting tomatoes aplenty.  This year the tomatoes are being affected by something to be determined.  Nothing has changed culturally except I have switched to a clear plastic roof as opposed to a white roof to increase light and get better fruiting.  That seemed to be the case until I noticed the 'Sakuras' getting some sort of leaf scortch or blight. It is now on the 'Charger' and 'Celebrity'. Hopefully we will be able to determine what it is.  Carrots are not cooperating again.  Two years ago we had the same issue.  Last year we had decent success.  A big winner this year is the sweet potato 'Covington'.  This will be the 10th week of harvest off of one row.  We have planted one row of red LaSoda potatoes thanks to help from the boys (Nathan and Noah) and some awkward help from a scraper blade turned furrow maker/hiller.  It took a while to get the implement to cooperate and I broke a hammer in the process, but it beat digging a trench and covering it by hand.  We will wait a week and plant another row.  I also have some 'Peter Wilcox' to try out, which is a purple skinned/yellow flesh variety that is supposedly really tasty.  We will see...

checking out the new potato furrow  

finished potato hill

snake in the field

Week 4, Season 14-15

The harvests have started off well this year at least once we got started.  The weather has been tame and the pests have been fairly low aside from the turnip greens.  We are about to start a big planting of more kale, broccoli, komatsuna, lettuce, and cabbage.  Our plantings go in waves out in the field around October and then sporadic crops here and there and then a big wave this next week.  It would be nice if I could plan it better for when I have time off.
Our sweet potato crop is awesome and am glad to have tried it out.  This weekend will be pick number four and we are a little over half way down the row.  Aside from some of the wacky shapes and gargantuan sizes, they taste great and are holding well in the field.  I shut the irrigation drip tube on them about six weeks ago and they are doing fine holding in the ground.
I have started putting in some of the winter cover crops on the fallow fields and completed one field with rye, rye grass, and clover.  I am having a late start this year.  I've got two more fields to do before we are finished.  I'm also trying to spread a self-seeding, indigenous legume that grows wild to all the fields to help do some of the work for us during the winter.  My goal is naturally appearing, self seeding, perennial cover crops that I don't need to buy/sow each year for both winter and summer.  We are a few years from that goal but are getting closer each season.
I took a picture of some of the red cabbage in the field to share.  I love to walk by it and check it out.  It has a beautiful color and hope it will harvest well later on.

Week 12, 2014

It is hard to believe that it is already half way through the season.  Tomatoes in the greenhouse are getting larger and should soon start picking.  Our cauliflower trial did great and it looks like we will have a new veggie for farm produce.  Freemont was the variety and looks like a winner for us.  I only planted enough for a trial, but it looks like it will do fine.  The rutabagas should pick this week.  This was an effort from a trial last year.  We will see what everyone thinks about them.

The strawberry trial is doing better than I expected and it looks like there is an abundance of flowers forming.  I hope they will carry out to fruit.  I might consider planting them next year if they yield alright.  I will be trying melons again this year.  We will see what happens.  Last year they were planted in a field that had terrible fertility and hardly anything yielded produce.  So the trial was uncertain.  This year should be better.

Potatoes are just starting to sprout from the ground and we will be doing our next planting today.  This year is flying by and it is time to plant corn, beans, cucumbers, okra, peppers, squash and zucchini.

Week 8, 2013

Things are looking pretty good thus far. We are steadily moving along in the season. The broccoli is the best we have ever grown and the collards and the new kohlrabi look fantastic. Our komatsuna has dropped off with the higher temperatures and the turnips and the diakons are in suspended animation. The root aphids are back again and sucking the life out of them. I am trying a few organic pesticides to remedy the problem but not having any luck so far. Ladybugs and predators are now widely dispersed around the crops and are doing their jobs keeping anymore aphids at bay.

I had to make an unusual night harvest last week which was the first of its kind at Steed Farms.  I went out with my head lamp on in the pitch black after all the kids got off to bed.  It was actually pretty nice to harvest at night.  Its a whole different world at the farm at night.  It was nice not to be rushed to harvest and wash everything before noon.  I am very thankful that my brother Pat was able to cover for me in the morning and wash everything while I could assist with a retreat at our church.  It was nice to see the stars and moon while I worked.  It was a little creepy when the coyotes started to howl not too far off.  I also found out that I have a family of rats where I keep my pots.  I could hear them moving about.  My white light died out but still had the use of my red LED light on my head lamp.  I shined it over there when I heard them and I could see their little beady, red eyes watching me.

We lost a spinach planting, and a carrot crop to bad germination or possibly fertilizer problems. I lost about 25% of our tomatoes and our entire pepper crop from transplants in the greenhouse. I thought that maybe I had done something wrong until a fellow grower spoke with me about all the problems he had with losing crops with the same fertilizer I was using. I did notice huge amounts of fly larvae in the fertilizer in the pots and just assumed that those flies came in after planting. My friend mentioned he had the exact same thing under plastic mulch out in the field which would be next to impossible to get flies that fast under the plastic. He is pursuing the company for the problems and we will see what happens.

We tried a few more strawberry plants again this year for our own trial. I planted them in pots with non-organic slow release fertilizer. They are doing much better this year. It seemed that the organic fertilizer never would release enough nutrients to produce much fruit. This year we have already harvested a half pint off of about 20 plants. The taste was out of this world.

We have planted leeks, lettuce, radish, onions red and sweet out in the field. I will start dusting off the seed packets for the spring here shortly. In no time at all we will be sowing squash, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, peas and beans again.

We are eagerly awaiting potatoes for planting. They should be arriving in the next few days and will get planted immediately. I ordered red La Soda which worked pretty good two years ago. Last year the freezes got them and we got very little yield.

I have pictures but can't seem to get Blogger to accept them.  Maybe next post...

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.

What is a Normal Winter?

I'm not sure I know what the answer to that question after growing plants in this area for 11 years.  Maybe the answer is "abnormal is the normal winter"  We have had a frost followed by 80 temps again.  I am glad that we get the frosts, it gets rid of some of the new spring weeds that are just popping up.  The potatoes didn't like it though and the regrowth we had is gone again.  We did cover up the Swiss chard this time and protected them.  Also, for the first time on the trees life, I see lemon blossoms and we were able to save those so hopefully we might get some lemons next year.  The tree has been there eight years and the cold weather steals the blossoms off.  We will see if we can keep them on this year.

Tomatoes have produced one fruit so far and it was delicious.  The excellent vine ripe, old-timey tomato taste.  There are a bunch more ripening up.  I can't wait.  One of our supporters mentioned that his dad prayed over his plants and they produced well.  I figure it never hurts to pray.  That might just be the key ingredient needed to produce abundant fruit. :)

We planted eggplants, more lettuce, more carrots, more collards, red mizuna, more kohlrabi, cilantro, tropical pumpkin in the field and cucumbers in the greenhouse.  I again held myself back from planting beans.  This is the second time I got close to planting green beans and having them froze to the ground.  I'm not taking anymore chances and will wait one more week.  Then I will plant them with corn.  My favorite crop to grow!  I love to watch corn grow.  I'm not sure what it is but I really enjoy watching the crop.  We will be planting some cabbage, leeks, peppers, more tomatoes, bok choi, to the field and some basil in trays to transplant later.

The loquats are starting to ripen.  There is not much on the tree this year.  The stonefruits are blossoming.  Maybe there will be no more freezes...Maybe I could plant beans this weekend.

We would also like to welcome our newest and also our youngest supporter. Congratulations to the Pridgeon's on the arrival of Ethan. 7lbs 10 oz on Feb 1st at 1740. I know his momma is glad he is here at last! What a beautiful little baby! Congratulations guys! I hope he likes red mustard greens :)

Week 9 update

The season is progressing well. We planted our spuds two weeks ago and will be planting some more this weekend. We are trying the red LaSoda potato. It was bred in the Louisiana breeding program and is a standard red for Florida. We had some initial success on our third season growing potatoes once we figured out that ants were eating the older tubers and boring into the stems. We are going to plant a little more this year and hopefully we will harvest in a few months.

Carrots, and bunching onions are sizing up and are a great addition to the weekly pickup. I planted three weeks of Broccoli and used two different varieties and it seems that it all came on at the same time. It can be a really large challenge to plan the season out ahead of time with so many changing variables especially counting the weather.

The arugula is starting to flower which will take it out of production, but I planted a back up that will be maturing later on.

The large tomatoes are shutting down but I planted seeds for a spring crop last week. It was interesting to see Uncle Matt's wild tomato take a breather this week. The plants had a growth spurt for the last two weeks with new growth and a bunch of flowers showing. There will be gobs of cherry tomatoes in a few weeks when they all ripen up. I also planted peppers and eggplant again for this spring. I placed an order for some sweet peppers, corn, and a few beans I am hoping to trial this year. I was also reading one of the bloggers I follow and he mentioned a squash called costata romanesco as a good producer as far as disease goes so I thought that I would give it a trial. I almost thought about planting for the spring and summer this weekend but with near freezing weather this week I figured I would wait another week.

There were three eggs in the coop today. Looks like the girls might be getting ready to lay again.

Novemeber on the Farm

Well it is hard to believe that it is already November, even with almost a whole year to prepare for its arrival. It might be harder to believe if it wasn't for how busy we are preparing for the season's beginnings. Things are moving along. The red bok choi is looking good, cucumbers are producing, squash are showing up on the plants, tomatoes are forming. The eggplants are just now entering into puberty and reaching a growth spurt. I'm not sure what was causing their delayed adolescents. Beans are still a bit off and I will be doing soil test on fertility levels this week to see if anything is wrong there. Mint is growing, along with dill, and parsley. The sugar cane is doing well and will be nice for a December harvest. Our resident Dixie Chicks have stopped laying while they go through their molting process. Our Rock Band (Jenn calls the new chicks, the Pleiadies, after the Seven Sisters star cluster even though we are now down to the six sisters) are getting larger by the day and it will be nice when we start offering our organic CSA members the eggs. Overall things are looking nice for a good start to the season at our farm.

Farm Happenings

We have just planted our squash, zucchini, napa cabbage, and red bok choy out to the fields. We also planted 10 different varieties of lettuce in 72 cell trays. I had to spray some organic pesticides for aphids and whiteflies. We are also starting to develop some downy mildew on the cucumbers. The cucumbers are coming in early this year; we have already picked about a dozen. I hope they hold up for harvest time in November. Our green beans are looking very yellow and our eggplant seems to be in a holding pattern. This is what happens when you change fertilizers. It is best if you can see how it works on different items and different conditions. We were not able to get our usual Sustane fertilizer and had to go with something else. It is not reacting the same way. We also have not had any rain lately so the fertilizer that is releasing is not making it to the roots. This might explain our yellow beans and slow eggplant.

My youngest brother Patrick has joined us for a few weeks out at the farm. He needed a place to crash and was willing to work in the fields. He has been a big help so far, cleaning up the nursery and planting many of the vegetables in the trays and field.

It's nice to see the oranges starting to turn orange again. They almost go unnoticed during most of the season disguised in a camouflage green. One really needs to look for them on the tree. And then almost magically they start turning the first shades of yellow, and then reappear into view. This is where I start thinking about how good they taste in the wintertime, and about how nice it is to cut one off the tree and eat it while I'm working.

We had a loss of one of the young chicks this last week. Something, maybe a raccoon reached under the hen house and took a bite of one and killed it. We made some adjustments to the pen and hopefully it will not happen again. Nathan and I got it out of the pen and buried it beneath one of the orange trees

Season's Stirrings

We started out planting the field with tomatoes, peppers, beans, eggplants, cucumbers, and pickles. So the season is off and running. I am hoping that we can make the fall season before it gets too cold. We have had virtually no rain in about 4 weeks and things are extremely dry. The plants just don't seem to grow as fast as when we get rain as opposed to watering from the well. I think that the pH is a bit high and the fertilizer doesn't get distributed well. Our beds have horse manure and the cover crops incorporated into the rows. I've also put out some granular organic fertilizer in the beds as a starter.

We had our second volunteer show up and help us out at the farm this weekend in exchange for learning how we do things. It is great to get extra hands for the farm. Work really seems to move along. Thanks to Jennifer for helping us out.

The baby chicks are doing better now that they are in with the hens. They are adjusting to their new life avoiding the Dixie Chicks. I think that I will call them the Rock Band (Plymouth Barred Rocks).

New Season 2010-11

Here we are again, another new season begins. Our cover crop has been halfway turned in. This year I tried iron and clay cowpeas and sudex grass mixture. The cowpeas came out good but the grass didn't germinate as well as I would've hoped. I used the rolling chopper to cut it down. I then disced it under. Finally I incorporated composted horse manure with a Rototiller that was lent to me by one of our CSA member friends. It was working great until I hit a buried citrus tree root and sheared off the PTO shaft. Luckily across the street I have a neighbor who welds and he was able to fix it within a couple hours. I would love to learn how to weld. It would be so handy to have this skill on our farm.

We have already started planting cucumbers, tomatoes and beans. We will start planting a few more warm season plants like eggplant and peppers this weekend. We will then follow up with other vegetable plants in the following weeks. I was hoping to get the warm season plants in before first frost.

We were fortunate enough to be interviewed by the local County agricultural magazine In the Field about our farm. It was a nice story with some pictures. Here's the link if you like to read about us. http://www.inthefieldmagazine.com/www.inthefieldmagazine.com/In_The_Field_Hillsborough_County_September_2010.html

our story is on page 52. I will start to get more pictures in the near future.

End of Season

We wrapped up a fairly successful season. I am happy to take a breather and regroup for the fall and this summers cover crops. It is a pretty intense activity to plan 12-15 organic vegetables each week for pickup for 24 weeks.

I harvested some of the seeds from dandelion, mustards, arugula, broccoli, rye, and cosmos. I hope to get some corn and sunflowers before the season ends. I think that I will need to start over on the cucumber breeding program with so many setbacks.

I have some pumpkins ripening up nicely and I hope that they will be ready for our field gleaning day. We are going to have a final pickup for anything left in the field. We still have some herbs, scallions, onions, carrots, cukes, zukes, and tomatoes as well.

I have also added a few fruit trees to plant this weekend. A peach, nectarine, and three persimmons.

Our one olive plant is producing olives this year. I hope to add a few more of these trees to the farm.

Our peaches did great this year and we are trying to figure how to use about 60 peaches we will harvest this weekend.

Second Season, Week 7

I was thinking about our farm and where it is going the last few weeks and it occurred to me that we are the first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm in Plant City! We are certainly not he first farm, nor the first direct sales farm, nor the first organic farm in Plant City. But we are definitely the first CSA in Eastern Hillsborough County. I have run into a few produce buying clubs that grow a little and buy produce to supplement, but no one to my knowledge is doing what we are doing. It is nice to be a part of history and maybe a start of a legacy for the next generation.



Back at the farm, we (Jenn, Grandad, and myself) have planted about 500 transplants last Sat. ranging from kohlrabi, red cabbage, red pac choi, a few experimental Asian greens, and some tomatoes. We have more tomatoes in the greenhouse still growing. Things are running late this year due to the extended cold weather. We've got no melons to come up, as well as peppers, zukes, and a few others that failed to germinate. We planted another round in the greenhouse to see if we can get them going again.



I am watching with anticipation our trials of garlic, potatoes, winter rye, and different kinds of corn. So far the spinach trial has proven very successful. The early planting trial has proven to be a big fat disaster with all the extended frost we have had.



I have planted three more loquats and am watching the peaches start to develop. The loquat tree fruit that is there has started to ripen and size up. We will probably be picking in a few weeks. The stonefruits have had very poor pollination probably due to the lack of movement of pollinators with the cold.



I will be getting ready to propagate and plant some mulberries, grapes, and blackberries when it warms up.



And still no camera! Stay tuned...

Frosty March

This month has started out pretty cold. The last few weeks we are still getting frost in the morning. Our potatoes have been freeze burnt and then grown out three times now. I'm not sure how much more of this weather they can take. I think that I lost a few bean and corn plantings and will need to replant. I was trying to beat the warmth and the pests by a few weeks. We are about 20 degrees below our normal daily high right now. The good thing is that it will extend our lettuce plants growing a little longer in the season.

I planted a few more loquats to see if we could supplement the fruit offering in the early spring. I will plan on planting blackberries, grapes, and mulberries this year to create a wider sample of fruit other than oranges.

We lost one of the Dixie Chicks a few weeks ago. I believe that a raccoon made its way under the fencing and got one of the girls. My Dad got there before me and took care of the carnage. There were feathers all over the place. It looked like someone shook out a feather pillow near their cage. I have placed posts around the cage to see if that will help and it has thus far. The four birds are laying about three eggs per day. We will begin to give them to our supporting members starting this weekend.

We will be planting eggplant, beans, and our last cool season transplants out this weekend. We finally found some Sustane fertilizer and I am relieved. It has been working the best for us. We tried four bags of a competitors brand with different analysis but it was no match for the Sustane. I can really see a difference in the transplant growth.

We still have no camera but hope to get one soon to show what is going on at the farm.

It's Cold Out There!

The weather here as been pretty cold as we have not had this much freezing temps since records have been kept in our area. Plant growth is minimal especially with the rainy days. But, this is exactly what climatologist predicted with an "El Nino" Year...cold and wet. Soil temperatures are about 59 F and might be too cold for our corn to germinate. It is hard to predict; some days it gets almost up to 80 F and then it is near 34 F the next morning.

We had one more chicken start laying eggs. We are at four out of five chickens laying now. It really is great fun to gather up the eggs and bring them home and see the egg container filling up instead of getting empty.

We are continuing to plant some of the cool season vegetables like the cole crops, mustards, bok choi. I planted some chard to see how that would do. We didn't have much luck two years ago. I am also having much better looking spinach this year. I tried the variety Bloomsdale on a recommendation from the feed store. So far it looks like this crop might work for us. We had really bad luck two years ago on this as well. I really think that variety selection and planting date are two of the biggest factors to work with on a successful crop.

The Dixie Chicks Lay Eggs!

Finally! After waiting about 9 months we finally have a few eggs to show for it. The chickens have started laying their beautiful brown eggs. We still don't have a camera so we couldn't take pictures but they were perfect size Grade A and tasted great. Jenn got breakfast in bed with fresh oranges and the kids shared her two egg omelet with fresh picked organic scallions and salami. Nate and Anna gobbled it up and wanted more but I had to tell them that there was only two eggs this time. It is amazing how excited we are over a few eggs, but we are all glad for the Dixie Chicks, as talk was increasing about how tasty they might be if they didn't start laying soon.

We have been planting some corn and beans at the farm this last week. We will be trying about a half dozen varieties and about three major types from fresh corn, popcorn, and flour corn. All these will be grown organically and I am starting early to get a jump on the pests. We also planted Contender and Provider snap bean to see how they will do early on in the season.