yeah, it was hot

I considered avoiding any talk of "the heat" today as it is/was surely on everybody's mind. But, really. 96. Feels like 102. 46% humidity...

This by lunch (actually by 10am).



Ok. More on that below.

First, my weekend. Beautiful!

Saturday morning was our second distribution.
On the menu:

Spinach (some of the best ever grown on the farm, says D)
Broccoli Raab
Turnips
Radishes
Head Lettuce
Bok Choi
Tatsoi
Garlic Scapes
Red Mustard Greens
Goldenfrill
Arugula (just a little left)





There seemed to be quite a few more visitors this Saturday. Lots of talking/laughing/socializing. Enjoyable.
The sheep are certainly becoming minor celebrities in these parts. Unfortunately the fast heat of the morning forced E to reconsider keeping them out for the day. I imagine I would feel the same if I had been in a heavy wool jacket. They made it through distribution, but were put in shortly after by me. I've grown quite fond of them. The oldest one had a little sinus congestion, so E fed her some garlic scapes as a "clearing" agent. She seems much better now. Also, fyi, getting them back to the barn is a GREAT deal easier when their harnesses are already on. Believe me.

The rest of the day and most of Sunday was spent with H. We did all of the daily farm chores together (as is the case when she visits) as E was visiting a friend. In short... awesome.

Sunday evening, after closing up for the day, I put some time in on the 3 Sisters field. Basic hand cultivation. The soil which has (very fortunately) had an even rain/sun/rain exposure for the past week is perfect for cultivating. Crumbles with little effort, but doesn't blow away in a dust cloud when worked through.

This, in fact, is a handy segue into today: Perfect (hot) cultivation conditions.

Our intent (I think) was to harvest until lunch for tomorrow's distribution.
At 6:30ish am (after taking inventory of the weeks remains) we were in W1 rounding up the majority of the rest of the spinach. And while the spinach beds were leveled with a degree of ease that's been unseen to date...



I still managed to cut myself twice. That makes 7 this season already. Not quite sure what to make of that number yet. Still thinking...

Onward.

We moved to Bok Choi after weighing and storing all the spinach we gathered.

Bok Choi is a pretty easy harvest. Straightforward cut and gather. Counting the heads aloud as they go in the harvest cart, washing and placing them in containers for cooler storage.
We took a quick bagel/coffee break after harvesting. It was at this time D made the decision to pursue cultivation for the rest of the day. Can't blame him. Save for the oppressive heat, the process was a relative breeze. Speaking of breeze, it does not exist a foot above the soil. Only radiant heat and humidity. Pretty stifling.

We worked (read: basket weeded, wheel hoe'd, hand weeded, raked) through the melon beds in B and the vegetables/herbs in Y. After lunch, I finally got to try my luck at hilling potatoes (note: sidefilling 5:1:1 with the tractor attachment at the same time works well as the hilling plates cover and kick the fertilizer right to the side of the potatoes) with the Farmall.

Why hill potatoes???

1. The plates loosen/aerate the soil and allow for better growth. The soil can also more readily drain/shed water.
2. If the potatoes are exposed to the sun they will green.
3. Hilling covers/kills weeds. Less work for your hands.

D was satisfied with the results. Though I must remember to hill up one side at a time as to avoid a "ridge and valley" effect which kind of defeats the purpose of hilling.

Our day was done shortly after. Aaand shortly after that we were invited to take a dip in the pool that's owned by the farm's governing organization.
What can I say? I went from "brain-dead and over heated" to "full sentences and 98.6" in 30 minutes. Amazing!

Looking forward to tomorrow as I now know what hot days feel like and am prepared for all those ahead.

Big morning harvest and a trip to the city for our remote distribution is on the docket. Good stuff.

Dig.

fridays for good

This morning... IT RAINED!!

At 5am it started and did not stop until around 10. Rather heavy at times.
We harvested (I realized that Fridays through the rest of the season will be very similar to this one, work-wise)...water rolling off of every limb. I must say I truly enjoyed it all. The work. The rain. The work in the rain. The soaked pants/sleeves. The camaraderie. Very nice.

As we did little more today than harvest for tomorrow/Tuesday's distributions, I think pics (and some captions) will tell the story well.

Proper gear? Absolutely essential. Faux bad attitude? Optional.



Approx 7am



Judy, Nancy, E & D



Today we harvested:

Spinach (loads of it...still)
Lettuce
BokChoi
Radishes
Turnips
Golden Frill
Mustard Greens
Broccoli Raab

This was by noon.

At which time the rain had stopped and we found this in our Member parking area.



What to do? Syphon, of course.





At the time of this post, most of this puddle has been syphoned to the downward sloping driveway about 50' away. Success!

After lunch we harvested garlic scapes (stems that will eventually hold the plant's flower), very tender, very tasty.



Heavy competition.. Who's faster? Mentor or Apprentice? My money's on the guy with 10 years of experience... but I'm always up for a gamble.







With that done, D called the day for us. Woohoo!

The evening?

I weedwacked what I did not have a chance to address in W's fields yesterday.

Closed the greenhouse/chickens. Did the dishes and shortly afterward, at the beginning of my quest for food, I turned this



Into this





It was actually a little disconcerting how completely the thing disintegrated.

Done and done. Cleaned and fed. Happy.

Looking forward to the morning's distribution. Socializing with/giving fresh food to members = Good Times.

dig

melons, yams and fireworks! oh, my.

When life hands you a perfect day to plant, what better to do with your time than, well, plant.

We woke to rain Wednesday. Not a whole lot of it but enough to give us pause before we made moves toward planting.
The watermelon and canteloupe seedlings were breaking out of their flats. Before they could hit the ground, however, we received a package (more than a week late) of our sweet potatoes (they arrive in bunches looking very similar to leeks). We ran with it. To Y we went. One 400' bed of yams.
Luckily the soil was easily workable as the rain continued. A metal-tipped wooden dibbler in my right hand and yam sprouts in my left, I made my way down the row. All was caked with mud within minutes. Awesome. Really.

Right after that we set out to get about 900 melon plants in the ground in field B.
Was rather happy with the rhythm I was able to attain in getting these guys grounded.

Just as we were finishing, two of my three guests for the day arrived. My brother, J, and his girlfriend, M.



Lovely kids. This is their first visit to the farm, so D very kindly let me have an hour lunch to show them around. They (as most are) were loving the chicks/chickens. Can't blame them. Aaaand they were up for some post-lunch harvesting.
We spent the afternoon bunching radishes and slicing off leaves of spinach.



Many laughs and two minor wounds (like brother, like brother) later....



we finished our field time and weighed up our take.
63 lbs of radishes and 81 lbs of spinach! Go team!

Very soon after, my third visitor showed. It was H's birthday and she made the trek to the farm to hang with me, bro, M, E and the chickens. How cool is that??
We broke open some rather tasty biodynamic Petite Sirah & Pinot Noir and enjoyed a beautifully warm evening. Pizza also made an appearance. "Mad good pizza!"

My brother (who also enjoys fire(y) things) brought a few small "party favors." As soon as it turned dark, we went to one of the lower fields and had a very small birthday celebration.





A great day. A great evening!

---------------

Today's tasks were (inadvertantly) studies in minamalism... if you like.

We began late today at the suggestion of D. 9am work call. What a cool guy.

With the weatherman calling for scorchers from Saturday on, we had a hard time deciding whether we wanted to focus on irrigation prep or move on some neccessary weeding. D made the call to weed and we headed out.
Parsnips and carrots in W2 got some TLC. The first time we weeded carrots (in W1) this size (really tiny) I was confused as to why we were doing so. We were brushing away dirt from in between mini carrot tops with no real weed in sight.... Let's just say, I get it now. Taking the time to brush out all of the weeds at their "white thread" stage saves sooo much time later, and allows the vegetable to have space/energy to grow right from the start.
Beets also got thinned along the way, giving them room to grow.

Before lunch, on our way out the field, D got curious to see what was doin underneath the surface in our White Clover cover crop. A quick chop with the hoe into the soil revealed wonderful nitrogen-fixing nodules all over their roots. These unseen processes continually blow my mind.

The latter half of my day was mowing W2 lawn and rye/vetch crops. Inside. Outside. Upsidedown. New Holland. Riding Mower. Weedwhacker. What can I say? I enjoy it.

This evening has seen a bit of brainstorming as to how I'm envisioning the path in our 3 Sisters' Field. For now we're sure we want dual-branch arches over the length of the path, perhaps to plant beans upon so they could dangle down for easy pickin. We'll see... exciting though.

Tomorrow is an early harvest day in prep for Saturday's pick up.

Sleep is a must.

dig

"goin on" goin on... (updated below)

I am continually amazed at how much can be accomplished over the course of one workday, let alone from waking to sleep...

Friday was ALL about harvesting for our first Saturday share pick-up at the farm.

It was an EARLY one for all.
4:30am looks something like this.



When 5:30 hit, we wasted no time getting all the necessary tools (knives, whetstone, harvest bins, tally sheet) for our day in W1. Tools collected, we headed down to the field to see what was ready to be gathered.
Our focus ended up on Spinach. Right time, right size, right taste. All told we harvested about 160 lbs. That's quite a bit of spinach.
Lucky for us, our Friday volunteers (Nancy, Johanna and Judy) showed up mid-morning to help make quick work of Radishes, Turnips and Tatsoi. I got to "mow down" some Red Mustard Greens myself. Note to self: Mustard Greens = Amazing









The sun stared down at us rather fiercly, which made our break that much more enjoyable/necessary (I like these pics):









-----continued------

We ended our "workday" around 2pm, but as you may have guessed by now, the work usually continues.

I was eager to do the final soil prep on our 3 Sisters field so we could get the corn in the ground. "Knee high by the 4th of July," you know...
The chisel plow was up first, but yielded a none-too-spectacular result.
The previously plowed/rototilled sod seemed to be too compacted/dry. I made an attempt in 4 wheel drive, but didn't want to take the chance of breaking a tyne on the plow. So, I set the plow to a comfortable depth and made my way through.
Afterward I de-rocked the field (1 front-loader bucket full) and rototilled a final time.

Huzzah!!



By this time E had joined me and began gathering seedlings, compost, tools, etc. as we didn't feel like waiting to plant. In the meantime, I dove head first into the creation of the path that will run through the field.
I wanted 2 things out of the path:
1. No angles.
2. When the corn is high enough you shouldn't be able to see out either entrance when standing in the middle.

So, this is what I came up with.



Closer look (with soil tamped in prep for wood chips)





I am happy with the results and can't wait to get the woodchips down.

E and I then planted a few dozen Hopi Blue Corn seedlings at 3' intervals. We dug a hole for each about 8" deep and mixed a little compost in at the bottom. Placed the seedling and brought dirt back around.





Closed up and satisfied with day/week, I hit my bed for some much needed rest... Saturday would be the first "Saturday member pick-up" at the farm. Nice.

-Saturday-

The day started @ 7 as the first members would arrive @ 8.
Not a whole lotta prep as we had taken care of most the previous day.
Weigh produce to see what we have and how much each member can take.
Set up wonderfully fresh greens/roots on stands, write up our share signs and let the chips fall...







I had quite a good time meeting/talking to several of the members. Thanks again for being an active part of sustainable agriculture. We appreciate it.

All was put away by 11:30 and I made a mad dash to the train station for a whirlwind 24 hour trip to the city.

-Wonderful time...-

Arrived back at the farm around 11pm Sunday night and went directly to bed. zzzzzzzz.

----Monday----
Morning.
This on April 3rd...



This yesterday...



(....yeah....)

D & I spent the morning harvesting in W1 (so much time in W1...) while E rototilled A, B and F in prep for this/next week's planting of winter squash and melons.
Harvesting was rather frustrating. I could not, for the life of me, get into a rhythm that seemed to carry me fast enough. Fumbling hands for some reason.

Actually took this pic before harvesting. Funny, that.



We made our way through Lettuce Mix (cleared our 1st half bed. kinda sad),



Swiss Chard (beautiful colors. really. cartoonish) and Red Russian Kale.

Right before lunch we direct seeded summer squash and cucumbers in B 2 & 3.
4" & 6" spacing to be thinned to 1'.

The afternoon had us laying drip tape for both beds. Was feeling a bit better by this point as the sun worked its magic on my mood...

Spent the last hour of work (plus 2.5 more) mowing/weedwacking to beautify for Tuesday's member pick-up. Also, pounded soil in the path through the 3 Sisters field.

Closed up greenhouse n chickens and called it...

----Tuesday----

Early morning. Straight to the field. Harvesting.

Spinach, Arugula, Turnips (enjoy washing these guys), Mustard Green (btw, 1.5 cups of these greens by themselves has your entire daily dose of Vitamins A & C), Golden Frill (spicy n good), Tatsoi, Broccoli Raab (just a lil bit).

Regulators, mount up...



Back to the barn for distribution prep. The shares for our remote drop-offs were up first.

Thanks to Johanna and Pam for their help.



Well-oiled machine...



Before lunch I jumped on the New Holland and leveled some rye in B through E that was starting to go to seed. Once again... I enjoy mowing.
After an extended lunch we packed up the van and E took off for the city. I helped D at his house for a spell and came back to ready for the Tuesday pick up.

Hmmm. Pics might be good now.









Another chance to meet more members. Good stuff. Packed up by 6:30. Day was done.

Ironically, my free evening has been spent playing "catch-up" here.

Happy that I seem to have remembered it all...

By the way, we have 9 more chicks!! More on them tomorrow.

Until then, sleep.

D.I.G.