What a roller coaster of a weather week! We went from 95 degrees this weekend (with lows of 75 at night) to lows just over 40 degrees the last few nights. We heard the low in Ashland was 38 degrees on Thursday morning. THRITY EIGHT! That's danger-zone, frost-possible cold - in JULY. Those poor field crops went from feeling like they were growing in a greenhouse to feeling like they were growing in a refrigerator. Come on, weather! This week on Weds and Thurs nights, we closed up the hoophouses to help keep those tunnel crops warmer and preserve the momentum we gained during the weekend heat wave.
That heat wave might have been tough for us people, but the plants loved it. Tomatoes ripened before our very eyes. The sweet corn grew 6-12 inches. That gentle day-long rain on Tuesday was the perfect way to end the hot weather - just what the field crops needed to put on some serious growth. And a cool rainy Tuesday gave us farmers a great opportunity to catch up on pruning and trellising the cherry and slicer tomatoes. It's looking like an incredible tomato crop this year, so I hope you are ready!
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Here's Farmer Sean in the cherry tomato house. While he IS pretty tall, he's not THAT tall - we're standing on buckets to reach the tops of the plants. Once we harvest the lower fruits, we'll unwind some of the string that they are trellised on to make them easier to manage. But we want to keep the fruits off the ground so they stay clean and out of harm's way.
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Here's what the slicer tomato hoophouse is looking like - LOADED! And starting to turn red - the first slicer tomatoes will be headed out in the veggie CSA boxes this week. I think this is the earliest we've ever harvested any quantity of slicer tomatoes - usually by the 4th of July, we're excited to pick an odd one or two ripe slicers. We'll have 10-20 pounds of them next week for your boxes, with many MANY more in the following weeks.
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During the heat wave, we left the doors wide open on the hoophouses, and it would appear that we had some "inspectors" in there at night. We found deer tracks wandering in between the plants and down the rows. And one deer apparently got confused (startled, perhaps?) and tried to exit through the end wall of the hoophouse. Monday morning when we went out to turn on the drip irrigation, we found this hole in the side of the wall! The hole is sized just right for a deer head to fit through, and is about the correct height for a deer head. Sigh. We put up gates across the doors now to allow air flow at night, but hopefully discourage deer from wandering in and knocking off tomatoes or making any additional holes.
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Another task we got done earlier this week just before the rain began to fall was to broadcast about 30 pounds of clover seed in our first planting of sweet corn. At over $3 per pound, organic clover seed doesn't come cheap, but it's a great investment in our soil health. This seed will germinate in a week or so and become a thick blanket of clover beneath the corn by the time it's ready to be harvested later next month. The clover will help keep the soil covered to prevent erosion, and provide a nice clean walking path when we're picking the ears of corn. Beneficial insects will enjoy the clover blossoms as well. Once we're finished harvesting this patch of corn, we'll mow the stalks down and the clover will take over. We'll let the clover grow all fall to continue to keep the soil covered until next summer. Interseeding this clover into our sweet corn is one way we can get a cash crop of tasty sweet corn (that is good for people) AND a cover crop (that is good for the soil and beneficial insects) out of the same field in the same year. It's a win-win!
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Another big task we started tackling this week was hand weeding our first planting of field carrots. Lucky for us, Farmer Eric and another friend came down to pitch in and help. We got through 5 of the 8 400' long carrot beds by the end of Thursday. This first planting of carrots is looking good, and should be right on time for an early August harvest. We hope to have the hand weeding finished next week, then we'll be on to weeding the NEXT planting of carrots, 8 more 400' long beds.
The winter storage carrots and beets are just beginning to germinate now, and hopefully we can get our mechanical cultivation timed better to reduce the weed pressure in there so we have less to hand weed.
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Finally, I'd like to introduce you to the newest member of the farm - Hobbes! We were lucky enough to get a border collie puppy from a farmer friend of ours in Bayfield. But he's not just *any* border collie. Our faithful farm dog Buster happens to be his uncle! Buster's sister was Hobbes' mamma, so we're hoping he's got the same great sense and smarts as Buster does. We've only had him for a few days now, but he seems like a mighty smart pup. We're looking forward to having another set of paws around to chase off those pesky deer at night around here. Lucky for us, he even pitched in to help weed those carrots yesterday. Good boy, Hobbes!
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That's it from the farm this week. Take good care, and we'll check in next Friday!
In community,
Farmer Chris
Great Oak Farm
