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.