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.
Friday, December 1, 2017
Tuesday, November 7, 2017
Season Start 2017-2018
I've taken a bit of a blogging hiatus since our last post way back in April. I have been somewhat overwhelmed with work, fixing up a mobile home, caring for six kids, and making sure that the household and vehicles are up to par as well as preparing for the next season. Usually the summer is a slack time from our busy pace; not this year! We lost a well pressure tank, an AC unit went out, someone ran over our farm mailboxes, hurricane preparations and clean up, and a work-cation. I am running just to keep up with things lately and the idea of sitting at a computer late at night hasn't seemed that attractive. Blogger has however, been calling to me and finally I have a free moment and will catch up from the last post.
Our 2016-17 season was one of the best seasons we have had in terms of vegetable/fruit production so far. The weather was mild and cooperative and plantings performed well. We added edible pod peas, spaghetti and acorn squash to our veggie line-up. Strawberries exceeded our expectations. All-in-all we had a "A-" season. The biggest downer was not having kale for an entire season. I just couldn't get it to germinate and stay alive to transplanting size.
This new season has started off with much difficulty. Our farm received over eight inches of rain at field preparation time. This greatly hampered our transplant starts and the formation of beds in the field as I wasn't able to get a tractor in to form our planting beds. So we started off two weeks behind schedule. Next we had some very cold weather during our warm-season cycle and that further delayed some plants another two weeks. Usually we are harvesting mid-Nov, this season will probably start mid-December. Other farmers I have talked with are in a similar situation. Fortunately, we grow many crops over the season, we have been spared major damage from storms, and will recover. So many growers in Florida have had a much worse time and have lost much of their crops for the year.
Our sweet potatoes are looking good, squash, zucchini, diakon, broccoli raab look fine. Our strawberries were direct planted to the field. This uses a bunch of water. For the better part of ten days, overhead water needs to run on bare-root transplants to keep them alive so they can grow new roots. I used low-volume sprinklers to keep the plants alive until the roots formed. This has saved me planting twice though. Usually I plant them into trays, mist them in the greenhouse, and form little starter plants, then transplant the rooted plants into the field. So I wind up planting twice to save water. Since time has been my limiting factor lately, I tried the standard method that strawberry farmers use to grow plants. I did notice some negative factors such as earthworms that recovered in the field (by using cover crops for a few years) were drowning in puddles trying to evade the saturated field and swamping other nearby crops. Maybe I will look for rooted strawberry plugs for next year.
That is a good start at catching up on things and I will continue in fill in details in future posts. Looking forward to a few hours of sleep and a great 2018 season!
Our 2016-17 season was one of the best seasons we have had in terms of vegetable/fruit production so far. The weather was mild and cooperative and plantings performed well. We added edible pod peas, spaghetti and acorn squash to our veggie line-up. Strawberries exceeded our expectations. All-in-all we had a "A-" season. The biggest downer was not having kale for an entire season. I just couldn't get it to germinate and stay alive to transplanting size.
This new season has started off with much difficulty. Our farm received over eight inches of rain at field preparation time. This greatly hampered our transplant starts and the formation of beds in the field as I wasn't able to get a tractor in to form our planting beds. So we started off two weeks behind schedule. Next we had some very cold weather during our warm-season cycle and that further delayed some plants another two weeks. Usually we are harvesting mid-Nov, this season will probably start mid-December. Other farmers I have talked with are in a similar situation. Fortunately, we grow many crops over the season, we have been spared major damage from storms, and will recover. So many growers in Florida have had a much worse time and have lost much of their crops for the year.
Our sweet potatoes are looking good, squash, zucchini, diakon, broccoli raab look fine. Our strawberries were direct planted to the field. This uses a bunch of water. For the better part of ten days, overhead water needs to run on bare-root transplants to keep them alive so they can grow new roots. I used low-volume sprinklers to keep the plants alive until the roots formed. This has saved me planting twice though. Usually I plant them into trays, mist them in the greenhouse, and form little starter plants, then transplant the rooted plants into the field. So I wind up planting twice to save water. Since time has been my limiting factor lately, I tried the standard method that strawberry farmers use to grow plants. I did notice some negative factors such as earthworms that recovered in the field (by using cover crops for a few years) were drowning in puddles trying to evade the saturated field and swamping other nearby crops. Maybe I will look for rooted strawberry plugs for next year.
That is a good start at catching up on things and I will continue in fill in details in future posts. Looking forward to a few hours of sleep and a great 2018 season!
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Week 22, Season 2016-2017
I can see the light at the end of the tunnel as the season winds down. Just a few weeks to go this season. I have been doing the final activities to help the crops finish strong; a little fertilizer here, some weeding there, a broken drip tube, etc.
We still have corn and beans to finish and they are looking nice. Cantaloupe and some new squash types are a few weeks away from finishing along with the new cucumbers in the greenhouse.
Strawberries are still doing well but the size is getting smaller with the heat. I checked the sugar level and they are at 10% which is still very high for this late in the season. I would love to do a sugar test with berries being sold in the store to see what you could get commercially. It would be great to see how we compare.
The seed bugs are beginning to take over. These guys live in the plants and eat the surface of the fruit and cause a bronzing to the surface. It doesn't seem to alter the taste but makes the berries look like they are bad. I've sprayed them with pyrethrins in the past but it just seems to slow the bugs down for a week before they are back. Since we are so late in the season, I am going to leave them alone. Having a week off allowed the Steed household to produce six quarts of jam and two and a half quarts of jelly (of which I will not be making again in the future due to the low yields and extra fruit and work that is needed). I have also tried making dried fruit and fruit leather. The fruit leather came out good and is super easy. Just blend up the strawberries after stemming them. Add a little lemon juice and sugar if you want. Then pour over a plastic lined baking sheet and put the oven on low at 140 degrees. It took all night for it to set but it tasted great and the kids liked it. I sent it to school with them for a snack.
The potatoes are yielding great and will pick for about four weeks. Leeks will pick for the first time this year.
Hopefully a good finish to a great year.
We still have corn and beans to finish and they are looking nice. Cantaloupe and some new squash types are a few weeks away from finishing along with the new cucumbers in the greenhouse.
Strawberries are still doing well but the size is getting smaller with the heat. I checked the sugar level and they are at 10% which is still very high for this late in the season. I would love to do a sugar test with berries being sold in the store to see what you could get commercially. It would be great to see how we compare.
The seed bugs are beginning to take over. These guys live in the plants and eat the surface of the fruit and cause a bronzing to the surface. It doesn't seem to alter the taste but makes the berries look like they are bad. I've sprayed them with pyrethrins in the past but it just seems to slow the bugs down for a week before they are back. Since we are so late in the season, I am going to leave them alone. Having a week off allowed the Steed household to produce six quarts of jam and two and a half quarts of jelly (of which I will not be making again in the future due to the low yields and extra fruit and work that is needed). I have also tried making dried fruit and fruit leather. The fruit leather came out good and is super easy. Just blend up the strawberries after stemming them. Add a little lemon juice and sugar if you want. Then pour over a plastic lined baking sheet and put the oven on low at 140 degrees. It took all night for it to set but it tasted great and the kids liked it. I sent it to school with them for a snack.
The potatoes are yielding great and will pick for about four weeks. Leeks will pick for the first time this year.
Hopefully a good finish to a great year.
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