Week 20, 2013 Season

I found some things out about myself while keeping this blog of our farm's journey.

1.  I have a mental block when it comes to spelling zucchini (Of course I had to look up the spelling to make sure it was correct).  Maybe I will learn how eventually with more practice. Zucchini, zucchini, zucchini.

2.  I believe that I have a limited number of written words that need to be expressed over a given time period.

In the early days of our farm and blog, I spoke very little and never wrote at my previous employment.  My written word quota was not being reached.  Now with four little ones and a job where most of what I do is write and speak, I think I am exceeding my quota.  Priorities have changed.  I don't have much of an urge to write about the farm.  I'm expressing myself aplenty.  I'd like to say I am going to write more...but probably I won't.  I used to feel guilty about not posting, but now if I write a post I congratulate myself.  Celebrate the small victories!

Regardless, now that I am taking the time to write I'll let you know what is going on at the farm.

We have a nesting pair of bluebirds in our bird box.  They are fun to see and cool to watch bringing food to the little ones.  We also have a mockingbird nest on an old trailer.  Nate and I discovered it last week by accident. We also had the privilege of seeing a flight of termites from our shredded tree piles from the powerline work.  These are the dump piles from the contractors cleaning up live oaks underneath the powerlines along the road ways.  I asked if they would dump the mostly chipped leaves on our farm and they were all to happy to oblige.  Now we use it to increase the organic matter of our soils.  The interesting thing about the termites was that a flock of swallows were eating them and were flying all around us when we went over to investigate.  They were so close you could here their mouths snapping as they flew through the aerial buffet line.  It was a neat experience and we spent some time just taking it all in.

Another interesting development is that our humble farm is apparently a goldmine for the local research plant pathologist.  He got excited when I was explaining about how my tomato plants' foliage turned purple and was wondering what it might be.  After some intense questioning he determined that we had tomato purple leaf disorder.  This is a yet unexplained problem (probably a new virus) on tomatoes and it got the scientist out to the field to collect samples and whiteflies with a bug vac.  He has been back to get more samples and found new and interesting diseases on our potatoes as well.  Well I'm glad we can do our part to advance horticultural science as well as grow organic vegetables for our local community.  It  makes for a win-win for our community at large...maybe.  I hope to add some pictures soon.  That reminds me...

3.  I find downloading pictures to a blog post harder to do than actually sitting down to write a post.

Welcome Cool Weather

Jenn and I were just having a conversation last week about how hot it has been this winter and what it might be like to grow in an area that has an actual cool, moderately protracted spring.  Then this last week blows in and it has been beautiful.  There is so much guess work growing in our area.  I almost planted green beans and corn thinking that our last frost was behind us.  I'm so glad I didn't because we did get a frost at the farm.  It has burnt some of our potato plants that were looking great.  Even some of our kale got frosted which surprised me.  My brother Pat and I had managed to protect all the newly emerged potatoes from our first heavy frost a few weeks back.  We covered them with pots or if they were small we used soil.  We did manage to cover up our young lemon, grapefruit, and naval orange trees and this spared them from real damage.  Thanks to Pat for helping out here as well.
We have been picking a few of our greenhouse tomatoes lately and they are yummy delicious.  We are growing Celebrity mainly.  The taste is as good as a Celebrity will taste, which is pretty good.  But the plant is grown more for yields than for taste.  That is another decision that must be made every year.  Do we grow for taste or for yields or try to get the better of the two?
I've been trying to trouble shoot an electrical problem with our irrigation valves for a few weeks with no luck.  So I called in the backup.  Dad came out and we cobbled together a solution that will get our blocks automatic watering again.  This will save some time in the evening visits to the farm.
We planted some zucchini and yellow squash, the last of the lettuce, more green onions (I love their taste especially on sandwiches), and red beets.  I will be planting two kinds of corn, melons, basil, green beans, peas, and peppers shortly to round out the last 8 weeks.
My family were talking about carrot tops and if you could eat them.  So our in house reference source (Pat) did some research and came up with this site.  All you could ever want to learn about carrot tops.   http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/carrotops.html

Week 12, 2013

We are halfway through the season.  It is really hard to believe.  It seems like the weeks are just flying by.  I heard not to long ago a metaphor for how time seems to speed up the older you go.  They said it was like you are moving through time at the speed of your age.  When you are 20 you are moving 20 mph when you are 65 you are traveling 65 mph relatively through your time.  Well, as I approach 40 I am starting to feel the wind in my hair.

We have finally added some color to our pick up this last week.  Beautiful red radishes.  I found that if I plant them one week after the lettuce I can usually pick them at the same time.  There was a few pink and albinos in the harvest and I grouped them together for a curiosity bunch.

I have been watching a few lettuce oddities as well.  We saved our seeds from the new fire lettuce a few years ago.  Some are very red,  but some are oak leafed and green with a tint of red.  Those are much faster to grow out.  I will leave these and see if I can get some self crossed seeds again to try out.  I like those greenish ones better as they finish faster.  Just look at the relative size in the picture above.

Along with saving some of our own seeds where we can I try to select traits that we like when we grow.  On the mustard and the arugula, I always try to remove the flowers that sprout up first.  I am trying to select plants that flower later than others so we have a longer harvest interval between growing and seeding.  These are some mustards that have started to flower.

Here are some pictures from the farm  Photo credit Pat Steed

sugarcane flowers with a hidden waning crescent moon

tomatoes in the greenhouse...Still waiting for some ripe ones  Photo credit Pat Steed

Farm photo Credit Pat Steed