Nitty Gritty News June 25th

From the Farmers ….
As I sit here writing, there are a lot of black clouds outside and a few rain drops falling – and we are hoping for more. It has been a very busy week at Nitty Gritty Dirt Farm. All of the final plantings of peppers, eggplants and basil went in on Monday. I used the new plastic mulch layer and put down two additional 250 foot rows of mulch and we planted another row of pickling cucumbers and another couple of varieties of eggplant. Except for the succession plantings, everything is in! Hurray! We have also been weeding – and weeding - with the bit of rain in addition to our irrigation the weeds are growing like – weeds. Just today we finished weeding – all by hand – the earliest carrots, chard and beets. It is such tedious, backbreaking work – and in this heat – even more difficult to maintain a positive attitude about. But it is done –at least for now – and the little plants will grow so much better with the weed competition taken away. All of the livestock has been enjoying tremendously the buckets of weeds added to their daily diets. This week, with the intensely hot, humid weather, we’ve been getting an earlier start in the fields 6 – 6:30and then taking an afternoon siesta at 3:00 with some of us getting back to work in the cooler evening time. Our interns have been learning some of the local swimming holes and places to eat on this unexpected day time off.

The heat has been really hard on the animals too – two of the broilers died in the heat and nearly everyone is suffering from heat stress in midday. On Tuesday afternoon - I noticed that someone had put a large red wet bath towel on Didja – the oldest Toggenburg milking goat – to help her cool down. Minerva, our rabbit doe with a litter of seven babies was so hot that she lay panting with a soaking wet nose. Giving her a frozen bottle of water in her cage can help her to cool down. While this heat and humidity makes the crops grow –you can almost see the corn get taller – it is really hard on the farmers and the livestock. It’s a little hot too for the early greens and lettuce – they like a bit more moderate temperature – but the other veggies are coming on quickly with the leap from very cool into full summer weather.
The farm is looking really good – the fields are beautiful. As you drive in - along the north side of the driveway, the swaths of green – the pale bok choy, the brilliant Chinese cabbage, and the deep blue green of the broccoli are a beautiful sight. On the other side, rows and rows of just emerging squash and pumpkins and the neatly mulched rows of green beans and onions are just as beautiful in a completely different way. The tomatoes are bright green and just beginning to produce flowers. The potatoes are showing big bud clusters and as I keep telling the interns –that means it’s about three weeks to new potatoes. And along with the new potatoes come the peas –both sugar snaps and shell peas. So much promise in the beauty of the fields.
Until next week……

WHAT'S IN YOUR SHARE

Mixed Asian greens, Kyona Mizuna, red and green tatsoi, arugula, broccoli raab.

Scarlet Globe Radishes (red round) French Breakfast Radishes (elongated red and white)

Bok Choy - Mei Quin Choi

Nitty Gritty News June 18th

From the Farmers….

YEAH! Finally in this spring of cooooool weather and sooooo dry we are ready to begin the harvest. This week it will be a bag of mixed Asian greens, kale, two kinds of radishes and bok choi.
All of our fields are looking great. With nearly all the fields either mulched heavily with hay mulch or hoed and weeded or layed with plastic mulch, all is looking neat and healthy. The peas and potatoes are just beginning to bloom and just today we finished planting all the squash, watermelons, cantaloupe and cucumbers. I just heard the weather forecast for the week and if the warm weather predicted for all week happens – and with all of our drip irrigation hooked up (not yet) - we should begin to see some substantial growth.

Travel safely to and from your drop site – meet your host (if you have one) and enjoy your veggies.
Until next week………



WHAT’S IN YOUR SHARE
Mixed Asian greens: Kyona Mizuna, red and green Mustard, tatsoi, arugula, broccoli raab, red Russian kale
Radishes: French Breakfast (red and white elongated), Early Scarlet Globe (red round)
Bok Choy – Mei Quin Choi

Today, your share will be in bags and bunches. There will be a sign at your drop site describing exactly what you should take. Bring a bag with you to gather it into. When the produce gets bigger, we will move to individual boxes for each share and will provide suggestions/instructions for the care and use of the boxes.

Nitty Gritty News June 10th

From the Farmers,
Rain. Finally the rain we needed so much came over the weekend and on Monday. And it was a good, long, soaking rain. All the tiny seedlings seem to have doubled in size – and so too the weeds. We’ve been mulching as fast as we can – just finished putting old hay mulch on the green and yellow beans. The black/white plastic laid between the early spring crops like lettuce, greens, carrots and beets seems to be doing a fine job of weed suppression. We’ve begun the picky, slow task of hand weeding the dozen rows of these early salad crops. I remind the interns that it is best not to look down the 250 foot row too often – it’s best to look behind you at the part that is already weeded.
We finished adjusting the new plastic mulch layer just this morning – it took a lot of trial and error adjusting, and since none of us here is a pro at this kind of thing, we are feeling pretty good about finally getting all the disk coulters, set wheels, and so on to all work together to dig the trench, lay the plastic, place the drip irrigation line underneath, and cover the edges of the plastic. Tomorrow, we will begin to lay the nearly two acres of fields with this mulch to get all the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and all the vine crops planted. So far, it has been just too cold here to put these tender crops out – we’ve already had some frosting of tips of potatoes and beans. But with the rain and some warm weather, we hope to get most of these transplants in by the end of the week.

We did a big poultry move on Tuesday. We moved the broilers to a much bigger pen, the turkeys to a portable hoop house and the Black Star pullets to their bigger home. All the other livestock is doing well and getting bigger and eating more and more. We’ve just weaned the goat kids and will begin a lot more experimenting with a variety of goat cheeses with the abundance of milk from our three does.

THERE WILL BE A SHARE NEXT WEEK. YEAH! Though everything has been on holding pattern for so long with the cold and dry weather – we WILL have some spring salad veggies for you next week. Watch our blog for information about how and when to pick up your share. Our early shares, because they are smaller and lighter will not be packed in individual boxes but will be bunches and bags. We encourage you to bring your own bag to take your salad stuff home. Please do not call the farm for the drop information – it is really hard to respond to your calls AND get all the farm work accomplished. Wait for our blog. We will have a special edition on SUNDAY with all the information you will need to get started. Then watch for our regular Blog update on Wednesday with what is in your share.

Until next week...