FINALLY, some decent rain! Here at the farm we got an inch of rain last weekend, and the field crops are absolutely loving life again. To put that in context, we only got 1.6 inches of rain for the entire month of June.
Most veggie crops like to see 1 inch of rain per week, and on average, up here in the Northwoods we get just about that much naturally from May to September, our peak growing seasons. This year, so far we are about 5 inches short of what we would "normally" get since we started planting - and that takes into account a wet early spring! Every little rain makes a big difference for all of these field crops, and we are so grateful.
That rain gave us some great germination on our plantings of carrots and beets destined for winter storage. Here's what a few of your winter veggie crops are looking like now:
Baby beets above, carrots below. Both are ready for some cultivation next week to keep the weeds at bay. If we want to control weeds organically with cultivating equipment, we have to start as soon as the seeds are out of the ground as we are able. But is sure is nice to see those long straight and relatively weed-free rows already!
The rolling basket weeder pictured below going through the late summer planting of carrots will be our tool of choice when it comes to cultivating these tiny little seedlings. It does a pretty good job of disturbing the soil thoroughly, but doesn't throw much dirt IN the row. This keeps those little seedlings from getting buried before they get a chance to really start growing. Repeated passes with this tool every 5-7 days does a nice job keeping the weeds out for a few weeks after the crop is up before the foliage starts to sprawl out.
The onions are taking off now with the recent rain, and with more rain in the forecast again they should be happy campers. Onions have short, shallow root systems beneath the bulbs, so they can't reach very far for water - frequent rains are perfect for them. Our early weed control has really paid off - except for a few stray milkweeds that pollinators will enjoy, they are looking nice and relatively weed free!
Unfortunately our Farmall Cub cultivating tractor blew a front tire on Wednesday, so we had to put a hold on driving it until the tire can be fixed. The new tire and tube are ordered and should be here this weekend. Fingers crossed we are back in action by Monday so we can keep those weeds down out there. There are so many moving parts and pieces of equipment on a farm, something is bound to break down every so often. And nothing ever breaks down when you are NOT using it ;)
The good news is that we have another cultivating tractor (the also antique Allis G!) that we can swap tools with. The G is currently set up to be our basketweeding tractor, and while the implements are interchangable, it takes about an hour to get one cultivation system off and another system on and set up properly. It's much more efficient to have 2 seperate tractors set up for 2 different tasks (basketweeding for tiny direct seeded crops, and finger weeders on the Cub for larger crops) but at least in a pinch we can still keep the weeds in check if one tractor breaks down for a while. 
Back in the hoophouses, we're gearing up for some seasonal changes. We'll be picking the last of the sugar snap peas this week, so enjoy them one more time! After we go though for the final harvest, we'll tear down the pea vines, prep the beds, and seed them down immediately into more parsnips for winter.
As we say goodbye to the peas, we say a hearty HELLO! to the queen of summer - slicing tomatoes! We are just seeing a few beginning to ripen this week, so hopefully in another week we'll have enough to start offering them in your CSA boxes. Nothing says summer like a fresh ripe tomato. 
The cucumbers are growing like crazy. We spent a very hot and uncomfortable day on Thursday getting them all pruned and trellised up again. It was 85 degrees and humid as can be outside of the hoophouse - inside it felt like a sauna. The cucumber vines are pretty abrasive on our skin, so often when we are working there we put on long sleeves and/or long pants to keep our skin from being too irritated by the fuzzy, sticky leaves - even when it's mighty hot. We won't have to get back in there for that kind of deep pruning for another 2 weeks or so, and we're thankful for that.
We're really working to keep the cucumber plants healthy this season by keeping the vines trellised and lower leaves (and extra shoots) pruned off to help promote good air flow and minimize disease. This week, the vines had reached the 8' high rafters in the hoophouse, so in order to be able to easily pick the fruits that are developing we lowered the strings they are trellised with down a few feet when we pruned. We had to use ladders to reach the strings, but lower plants will allow regular harvest to happen with our feet still on the ground.
Cherry tomatoes are doing fabulous, and we'll have a good supply of them for weeks to come now. It won't be long before they too will be touching the rafters and need to be lowered down so we can keep picking them. Collards are loving the heat, and the beets are continuing to size up nicely as well.
As far as field crops go, we're about 2-ish more weeks out from the first heads of broccoli. Most years we are beginning to pick our first heads of broccoli right about the 15th of July, but the cool spring and tractor issues led to a later than usual first planting date.
But don't worry, broccoli lovers. We've been planting and planting (and planting!) loads of broccoli. Here is what our latest round of transplants looks like right now, and we've got 2 more successions in the greenhouse that will carry our broccoli production through the late fall. You can probably see a lot of tiny weeds coming up in those rows - as soon as we get our new tire on that little Cub, this planting will be the first place we head to kill some weeds! 
That's it from the farm this week. Here's to some more gentle rains in the coming days.
In community,
Farmer Chris
Great Oak Farm
