Hot, Hot, Hot

It is dry and hot out there.  But things are still growing.  Our lettuce plants are starting to bolt again because of the heat.  The greenhouse eggplants are nearly ready and some of the cucumbers from the house have been harvested.  We really missed/stuggled with the lettuce growing window this year but I am very proud of the fact that we have an entire salad ready all at one time.  Lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, scallions, onions, carrots, radish, and spinach are all ready now.  I've been trying to do that for a few years and the seasonality has been off for the cool to warm season veggie transition.  This year with the greenhouse we have much earlier tomatoes and are catching the tail end of the cool season veggies.  Next year hopefully I can start things a little earlier in the greenhouse and also add peppers to the mix.  I was thinking about my tomatoes and keep remebering that my Grandad in Ireland grew them in a small glass house and sold them to the city folk.  My Dad had to go water them by hand with buckets and wanted to move far away from the farm.  It is funny how things came back around with me and my tomatoes except for my Dad who moved far away again from the farm.  
We planted corn (two types), beans, more brocolli, flowers, peppers, a kidney bean trial, and more cucumbers all in the field.  The green beans are starting to flower, and the leeks will be ready soon.  I've been mounding up the soil on the stems to get more soft white stems from the harvest. 
I got a couple of cuttings from a tropical raspberry called mysore raspberry and have potted them up into 1 gallon pots.  They would be a great addition to the mix.  We love raspberries!  I am hoping to plant blackberries, a few grapes, and the raspberries out into the field this year. 
I am starting to think about growing the herbs in pots under the shadehouse.  It might be a little more manageable especially the mint to grow it in pots.  We might also extend the harvest time a bit.
Here are a few pictures of the happenings on the farm.

tropical pumpkins started from seeds

red mustard being killed by downey mildew

greenhouse tomatoes

Mysore raspberry rooted cutting

Mid Season

Another wacky few weeks of weather.  I finally planted beans and then a few days later we had lots of patchy frost on the ground at the farm.  I know this first hand as I camped out Sunday night with the kids and a friend with his kids.  It was literally freezing in my sleeping bag.  I've never been so cold that my legs hurt.  The kids were well bundled but I thought that my sleeping bag was more insulated and didn't bring back up.  So sometime in the middle of the night I needed to put jeans over my sweat pants just to stay warm.  My head was kept warm with a hat, hood, and my sleeping bag which I pulled over my head to keep from freezing.  It really made me think about what the homeless might do to keep warm.  We had a nice little fire and did the hot dogs, marshmallows, and we even had fresh eggs and cut up some oranges for breakfast.
This season has been tough for our cold season veggies.  It has been way to warm and "usually" we get a slower warm up and transition into our hot spring.  This year we have had a very warm transition but still too cool to plant warm season crops outside.  Especially like last week's freeze.  At least I wasn't ready to take the risk.  So there is sort of a production gap from the cool season crops to the warm season ones.  We should be fine harvest-wise but our cool season crops are stopping short this year.
The late frost a few weeks back has impacted all our stone fruits and loquats this year.  Some of our peach trees are still in hibernation mode and waiting for the right amount of chilling hours until they "wake up."  It was so warm that they never got their required amount of vernalization.These will hardly produce a crop.  The other trees that did break dormancy had their young blossoms freeze and fall off so we will get little to no fruit on them. I'm not exactly sure what happened with the loquat this year but it has very sparse fruit on it.  Maybe just too dry.
Our greenhouse trial with tomatoes, eggplants, and cucumbers looks good.  The tomatoes seem a little sparse and maybe a pollination issue or low light from the white plastic I used.  I'm not sure which or maybe both.  But I have been hand pollinating and it doesn't seem to affect the fruit set.  So I am leaning on light conditions which should get better with the longer day-length.
Jennifer is eagerly awaiting the carrots...Her favorite crop.  If I had to pick a favorite based on taste I would have to go with the peaches.  Looks like I will miss out this year.
I've got some pictures to show soon as I haven't posted some in a while.  Next blog will have them.

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 :)