Yesterday we began a multi-stage project of cleaning out beds in the greenhouses to make way for new crops of salad for fall and winter. It's transformation in a large way. By mid afternoon we were able to clean out, spade, rake, amend, plant out and set up irrigation on one 3 x 100 ft bed. It's sometimes somber to take out tomatoes to make way for lettuce. It's a task that must happen though if we want to have greens for winter. This time around was not too bad. We had one row that was'nt doing much anyway so out with the old and in with the new without looking back. The sadness quickly wanes the first time you are harvesting greens on a cold, windy, wet day. Completely dry and out of the weather in shirt sleeves. We do sell more greens than we can produce in the greenhouse's alone so we have to grow outside as well. But the comfort of working inside can't be beat.
So along with the indoor greenhouse work we have benn prepping ground and direct sowing greens as well. My gut feeling is that we are a little late this year. It all depends on the weather. If it stays nice we'll be fine. The season has changed and we are re-setting up in the propagation greenhouse. This is where we spend alot of time in the spring starting hunreds of flats of new seedlings. It will be good to be back into our familiar coziness. We'll be sowing a lot of lettuce in flats in the next couple of days. Enough to plant out all of the greenhouse's and a little more for outside perhaps.
People always are curious how we grow in the winter. The trick is to pick the right varieties and to get things started early enough to be able to have them grow to a harvestable size before the weather brings things to a halt. That way we are just sort of harvesting. The plants tend to grow back slowly if at all. Mostly it's planning and timing. Having a little good fortune on your side never hurt either.
We are gowing into fall looking pretty OK. We have alot of fall and overwintering brassicas in and doing well. Tons of Tomatoes on the vine to be harvested within the next couple of weeks and thousands of pounds of potatoes in the field waiting to be harvested. Lots of newly sown greens. We have a few rows of beets and turnips should be on in a couple of weeks. As always I wish there were more.
Fall is a busy time. Lots of everything to do. Canning, freezing, harvesting, firewood, cleanup, planting, cover-cropping and putting things to bed in general. It never ends.
Keep well my friends and enjoy the bounty of a long, amazing, productive summer.
Farmer John
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When the rain comes this time of year the first thought I have is please, rain a little, but not too much. I always like the rain but the risk for getting late blight on the tomatoes is high. Not too big of a deal but I'd like to see them go for a few more weeks without blight setting in or lose a buvch of them to splitting. I hav'nt watered the toms in a few weeks so they are more sensitive to moisture at this time. Too much and they just can't absorb it so fast and they split. We still have thousands of pounds in the field, mostly green ones but tons of ripe cherries as well, which are especially vulnerable to splitting. Not nuch we can do about it except think that they'll be fine. Thinking good thoughts is a strategy we employ regularly. I'm a firm believer.
On the flip side the rain is good for the new and last crop of greens that we'll be sowing today. It's been so dry, a little moisture will speed up the germination process. I'm probabally a little late. It's a simple task but sometimes it's so hard to rally and get out there and do it. We seem to spend all of our time harvesting these days. It's tedious and time consuming. It's also rewarding and impressive. September is a bountiful month. Perhaps the most of any month of the year. Pretty much everything is on, at least for awhile. You can definately feel a sense of fall in the air. We'll gradually taper off in the coming weeks. Less traffic on the island definately effects our business. We have just three more markets for the season. It's bitter sweet. I love the market and seeing the huge quantities of fresh produce being brought to market by all of the farmers. On the other hand after about twenty weeks of intense harvesting, delivering, truck loading and un-loading and truck re-loading I'm ready for the transition into a slower paced season. It's fall in about a week. My favorite time of year. There is still plenty to do and lots to harvest it's just at a more sane pace. As always this time of year I begin to reflect on successes and failures, things that worked and things I'd do differntly. Thoughts turning torward next season. What to grow and where it's all going. A good time of year. A good time to be a farmer, planner, soil scientist, thinker, activist and doer. A good time to be a cook. A good time to be an eater, firewood maker, napper, mechanic, maintenance technician, wine drinker, leader, optimist, lover of life. A good time indeed. It is good to be alive.
Keep well my friends, and do good things.
Farmer John
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As farmers, this is the season we yearn for. Everything is on. I like to call it the sweet spot. It lasts for only about six weeks. Not long consideringhow long it takes some things to come to fruition. Take tomatoes. We've been babying these since February and they are just now coming into their own. Hopefully the weather will hold out for us for a few more weeks so we can maximize the yield. We'll be harvesting thousands of pounds here in the next few weeks. Hopefully the excitement holds too. Thats alot of tomatoes to sell! Potatoes are looking great. The best we've ever grown. Especially since I got them in the ground so late (1st week in July) We'll also have thousands of pounds coming in shortly. despite getting them in later than normal, they just popped right up and are showing excellent yield potential. This is good. We'll be able to stock pile them in our cooler and send them out as neccesary. The big question is storage. Where are we going to put everything? Tomatoes can't go in the cooler. Weather conditions force us to harvest some of them on the green side. Most of them will ripen up nicely if we can keep them in a dry space and protect them from crittera. That means putting them inside. I'm not for sure what we're going to do as of yet. We'll figure it out. We have to constantly sort through them to pull out the ripe ones and any others that are damaged. Last year we were delivering tomatoes into November.
The sweet spot is good. It also requires some long arduous days. We spend alot of time harvesting, delivering and marketing. Energy levels seem to wane at the same time. It can be difficult to keep up on all of the other field chores. We are still planting and there is a never ending list of projects and field work to be done. Not to mention putting in firewood. Yikes! I am behind. (as always)
I love these days. You can feel a definate sense of autumn in the air and yet the bounty is tremendous. I just love going to market and having our display heaped with fresh island grown produce. The pace is hectic but it's different at the same time. Relaxed in some ways perhaps just by seeing that something you have planned for and rasied from seed has come to maturity without getting wiped out by bugs, deer, chickens, weather or an unattendant farmer.
Well, mostly anyway. We have had our fair share of problems this season. Without question this has been the most challenging year out of the seven. Mostly just whacky weather. Weeds have been a big one too and the neighbors errant chickens invading our greenhouses with their baby chicks and wiping out my prized Paul Robeson tomatoes. Two nights ago we had deer invade and wipe out an entire planting of lettuce that was just ready to cut. That one hurts. I'll be short on greens due to that and that costs money and bruise's the ol ego. Deer! dirty rotten thieves. Carry on lad, can't dwell in the misery now.
Despite the difficulties, this has been the best year ever. You're reading the words of a very happy farmer. This is the first year it seems that I've had a life outside of the farm. All is well.
Hoping for a nice long Indian summer that eases into winter. Who knows what it will be. There are many things to do yet so for know I am hopeful. Already dreaming of next year and a continued bounty.
Farmer John
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Here on the farm I am feeling rather blessed. The tomatoes have been just lovely and the quantity is impressive. We are starting to see some of the outdoor plants coming on. This is all good. We dedicated a lot of ground to tomatoes this year and they don't always make it here this far north so to see ripe tomatoes coming on is almost a feeling of relief. If they didn't perform, we'd be experiencing a shortage of product since we made the decision early on to give up a couple of other crops in order to have more space to grow toms.
Apparently, this has not been such a good year for tomatoes in our region. I hav'nt seen tomatoes in any quantity at the farmers market and I know one of the big growers on the mainland has experienced difficulty and are not producing much. Cooler tempratures have slowed things down a bit so indeed it's a feather in our cap. It's an optimal scenario. Low supply vs. high demand means we can hold our price for longer. Tomatoes are a cash crop for us and it feels like a small victory. Reminding me of the thought that farming appears to be at times nothing more than a series of success and failure.
We've been putting out some nice salad greens too and the summer squash harvest's are bordering on ridiculus. We can't seem to pick them fast enough and they are delicious. Strawberiies are back on and will be producing into the fall. In my opinion this is when they have the best flavor and are the most beautiful. Also the cucumbers have been on strong. You would'nt think it but cukes are a very profitable crop for us. I am experimenting with a late sowing. If they make it we'll have cukes right at the end of the growing season to store in the cooler for fall. We harvested the first peppers yesterday. They look and taste great. Our late planting of potatoes are absolutely gorgeous. I don't know if I've ever seen as good looking of a stand. Hopefully we'll have a big late harvest. I've got peas and fava beans up right now too. I'm in new territory here with these crops at this time of year. It looks like there going to make it but I've got my fingers crossed.
This has ben a funny year. I have lot's of little late sowing experiments going on as mentioned above. We are a little off on our sales volume. I'm hoping for a solid late season to make up ground. We have been setting out fall brassica transplants as fast as we can. Hopefully in a couple more days we'll be planted out. This is the last chance to sow things like beets, carrots onions, turnips and the like. Salad green production is entering fall mode too, it's the best time of year for greens.
We've done things a little differntly here this year. Scaling back in a way but not really. Just trying to make things easier. It appears to be working. I guess we'll really see at the end of the year. I know I have been working a lot less hours than what I normaly do and life is good. I actually get a day off here and there, go figure.
Keep on
Farmer John
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Summer is in full swing and we are finally seeing the normal crops of the season come into their own. Tomatoes have just come on in a sustainable quanitity that we can rely on a solid weekly harvest. peppers are starting to come on and we just began harvesting cucmberes. The squash has been on big time for a few weeks now. Things are just a little later than what we would normally expect. This has been a weired year. Weather conditions have been all over the board. Wet, cold, hot, rainy, hot and normal. We've had to be light on our feet and very flexible. We have a lot of spce dedicated to tomatoes this year so it's good to see them coming on strong. So far we have just been harvesting greenhouse toms but the outdoor ones will be on soon. It's the true meaning of summer to me. Nothing beats fresh tomatoes and basil.
Along with the summer harvest we have been busy sowing seeds for our fall and overwintering crops. We have more flats sown this year than ever before. There coming along nicely and soon we will begin transplanting. So for right now there is lots of field work to do. tilling and bed prep mainly. We've experienced some heavy weed pressure this year so as I am prepping beds we are irrigating to get the weeds to sprout and then eliminating by flame or light tilling just prior to set out in order to get a jump on the weeds. We are sowing new seeds both direct and in flats about every ten days just to keep up with demand. This is the hardest time of year to grow consistently nice greens. Water, water, water. Harvesting takes the majority of time so it's hard to keep up on a solid schedule. Some how we seem to be doing it. We have some ground tomake up as far as sales go so I am hoping for a solid fall and winter season.
Even though this has been a more difficult growing year than others, life seems to be on a more normal pattern. I'm not working so hard and it's been nice to be on auto pilot for awhile. I can't believe it's already into August! Time does fly when you're having fun.
Saturday markets have been picking up and it's really great to see all of the different crops the farmers are bringing in. We are blessed withsome great growers here. Come visit and see for yourself.
Keep well.
Farmer John
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