Week 16, 2018-19 Season

The last few weeks have been alternately warm and cool.  We are still growing lettuce; barely.  It wants to bolt but a few days of cool slow it down a bit. 

This is the last week of starfruit.  I was surprised to price the fruit at a retail store for $2.50 a piece.  We had about 6 weeks of fruit this year.  The tree yielded very well. I fertilized it this week so as to keep up production for next season. 

We are about four weeks away from harvesting potatoes.  I planted 'Reddale' and 'Dark Red Norland.'  They are looking very well so I hope the yield is as good as they look.

Corn is about 4 inches high.  I had to replant due to a lack of rain and some skips but it is starting to take off.

Onions are sizing up, leeks are small yet and green onions are growing as well.

Tomatoes are just starting to ripen.  The plants grew tremendously this year but there is some disease in the greenhouse.  Organic fungicides don't really slow down the progress of disease so I spent a good amount of time this week removing infected leaves and branches to reduce the inoculum levels.  Hope it helps.

Strawberries have produced well and are starting to slow down due to the warm weather.  I noticed that many fields are already done picking around town.

Only eight more weeks left in the season!

Week 13, 2018 -19 Season

Things are looking good in the field over the last couple weeks.  We could use another good rain.  We've been a little dry and plants always respond differently to rain compared to irrigation.

I planted leeks and green onions last week.  This week I am setting the squashes and finishing the green onions planting.  I am planting a few miscellaneous crops to fill in some gaps and then our plantings are wrapping up for the end of the season.

Strawberries are producing copious amounts of gorgeous fruit this week.  Looks like one more week of starfruit before we finish their season.

Tomatoes are still green and ripening.  I have never seen so many tomato flowers in the greenhouse.  We should be in good shape in two months.

One crop of beans is finished and another is emerging from seeds.  Onions and carrots are a few weeks out.   Red potatoes are looking good but could use some rain.

The warmer weather is causing the lettuce to bolt so we might be wrapping up the lettuce season early unless we get another cool spell.  I thought this full moon would bring rain and a cool front, but we missed out.  We'll see what this week brings us.



 

'Bout Time

Well, it IS about time to write a post.  It is also about time that I haven't posted in a while.  Running around with six athletic kids is very tiring.  Sitting down to write a blog post seems like an extra homework assignment.  Finally thought I would summarize what's been going on at the farm.

This season has been one of the hardest seasons of our ten we have been growing.  We have had very wet, very hot, very cool, and very damp- making for another typical, atypical fall/winter in the Bay area.

Ants are a real problem this year.  They have been chewing the stems of transplants and killing them.  We lost two crops of broccoli, one crop of kale, and a collard crop due to their behavior.  This is the first time they bothered  cole crops.  Thankfully, we are finally getting things under control (even if half of the season is behind us).

This season we are growing on the eastern side of the property that borders Hwy 39.  The soil has doubled in organic matter.  This means our soil fertility has increased with additions of cover crops and organic soil amendments.  Our annual soil test reported we only needed to input nitrogen this year.  Looks like things are working out in building up our soil.

There are some growing changes this year.  We are growing strawberry 'Sensation' instead of 'Camino' with much success.  This variety produces berries earlier in the season and they are much larger than Camino.  We added pole beans, baby bok choy, downy mildew resistant cucumbers, and screened our greenhouse so bugs can't enter.   We have been late with tomatoes but they are growing with reckless abandon.  We should soon be picking them.  Pole beans did well for a few weeks but seem to have slowed down.  They are very tasty and extra long and I can grow them in the greenhouse during the winter.

Snow peas are just starting to yield.  Beets, beans, carrots, mustard greens, scallions, lettuce, and sweet corn are being planted this week.

Hope to keep you updated from time to time...