Week 18, 2014

Our season is heading into spring and the warm season crops are starting to wind up.  Tomatoes are looking good this year.  I've got a few tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) resistant varieties as we determined from our UF research visit last season.  We are using Sakura, Charger, and Celebrity as our grape and round varieties.  We have seen less whiteflies but the spidermites are starting to become a problem.  I've been trying to start a new shoot from the base of our Celebrity once they reach their determinite height.  I just add soil and fertilizer and cover the old stem and get the new shoot to root.  It is like starting a whole new plant.  So far it is working well and I hope to start the plants a little shallower in the pot and then add soil as new stems are formed for new plants.
Lettuce has been spotty this year.  We lost a crop from worm compost and then our back up crop failed due to something wrong with a bag of soil.  We finally had to buy some from another organic grower just to get a crop in.  By this time we got our fourth crop from our seeds in the ground just in time for the return of upper 80 degree weather. We will see if we can harvest before they bolt.
Our strawberries are doing better than I imagined possible from organic, in the field planting.  Commercial growers will run water for 10 days straight sun up to sun down, to set the bare root plants in the field.  I planted the bare root plants into trays and ran intermittent mist for a week until they established roots, then planted them to the field.  We probably saved 98% or more of the water over a traditional planting method.  I also only sprayed the plants with a fungicide and insecticide one time each.  That is the most amazing part.  It has taken up until now for the taste to increase in the berries, but now they are tasting like real strawberries.  We will see how long they last.  I believe we will add them to the list for next year if we can come by the transplants.  This process has taken me three years to figure out.  First was pots in the shade house.  Next was pots in the greenhouse.  Finally, I figured I would just put them out with the rest of the crops and amazingly they did the best there.  This has encouraged me to try watermelons and an Asian melon that we had a little success with a few years back.  I can never get the melon plants to stay alive once they set fruit.  I hope this year is different.

Here are some pictures from the farm...

A new tomato growing from the base of the old plant

15 Sakura grape tomatoes on one stem!

Collards ready to pick

Shares for delivery

Nathan sneaking up on a hawk with a camera

Week 12, 2014

It is hard to believe that it is already half way through the season.  Tomatoes in the greenhouse are getting larger and should soon start picking.  Our cauliflower trial did great and it looks like we will have a new veggie for farm produce.  Freemont was the variety and looks like a winner for us.  I only planted enough for a trial, but it looks like it will do fine.  The rutabagas should pick this week.  This was an effort from a trial last year.  We will see what everyone thinks about them.

The strawberry trial is doing better than I expected and it looks like there is an abundance of flowers forming.  I hope they will carry out to fruit.  I might consider planting them next year if they yield alright.  I will be trying melons again this year.  We will see what happens.  Last year they were planted in a field that had terrible fertility and hardly anything yielded produce.  So the trial was uncertain.  This year should be better.

Potatoes are just starting to sprout from the ground and we will be doing our next planting today.  This year is flying by and it is time to plant corn, beans, cucumbers, okra, peppers, squash and zucchini.

Happy New Year! Week 6 2014

Things have gotten a little chilly here at Steed Farms.  We went camping on New Years (Anna, Nate, Noah and myself) at the farm.  This is the second year we've done it and it might be the last time we all sleep in one tent.  We barely fit without bumping into each other all night..  Jenn and Katie are smart and stay home.  We do have fun roasting hot dogs and trying to find animal eyes with the spot light.  We tracked down some spiders whose eyes were glowing bluish white.  I did hear a bunch of coyotes near midnight a little north and east of the farm but didn't see them.

I was able to disc in our summer cover crops and put in a winter cover crop finally last Saturday.  It was just in time for all the rain we had this week.  Thank the good Lord for all the rain!  It looks like it will do fine now and is already a couple inches tall.

The crops were a little off with the mostly hot weather and then sporadic cool days.  Some of the plants were stressing and getting some fungal spots.  Everything is growing fairly well except for the strawberries.  I tried them again this year and they are getting anthracnose spots on the older leaves.  When this happens the leaves fall off.  So I have small little plants with new leaves.  I haven't sprayed them with anything and should be but I haven't had a chance to.  I've been too busy removing yellow flowering wild radish from the field.  I thought last year it would make a good cover crop, and I think it was.  I didn't have the foresight to realize that it would go to seed and make my life miserable.  Everything we grow from seed looks just like it: arugula, diakons, raab, turnips, rutabaga.  I can't hoe the row because I can't tell the difference.  So I need to hand weed when they get older.  Lesson learned.

Here are some pictures from the farm...

carrots after weeding wild radish

before weeding wild radish

Week 2 produce

sugarcane and lemon to refresh from weeding

pigeon pea cover crops

Nate sneaking up with a camera