It's feeling like Spring more and more each week! The outdoor lettuce is really growing strong, so we have a good amount of lettuce mixes, plus some amazing salad mixes. Baby kale is back in the mesclun mix, plus we harvested some beautiful ruby streaks mustard greens. Sadly, we have pulled all of the carrots, so this will be the last week for those, unless there are a few bundles left after farm share deliveries on Friday. Last week, the kale microgreens were not ready for harvest, so they will be added to the arugula, red radish, sunflower and pea shoots mix. There are several edible flowers blooming on the farm, so this week we will also offer edible flower containers. They will be a mixture of tatsoi (yellow) and chickweed (white) flowers.
Farm Update
So many fruit trees are budding and flowering at the farm. First, I noticed the pears popping out several weeks ago, then mayhaws, and now huckleberries. It's such a welcoming sign that Spring is almost here. It's also a sign that it's time to hustle and wrap up a lot of our early plantings.
We can plant, but even if conditions are perfect, it doesn't mean that crop will succeed. Rabbits have destroyed so many of our crops over the years, but this Winter has been the worst. Since last Saturday, we have spent several nights out spotlighting, trying to reduce their numbers. So far, we have bagged five of them, the largest weighing in at seven pounds! Several of our friends have helped us by staying out all night at the farm, and by bringing red light headlamps and night vision scopes. Tuna is elated, and several of y'all have sent rabbit recipes! Thanks so much! They were surely the best fed rabbits in north LA! By all estimates, there are between 15-20 we still need to eliminate.
We finally have enough money to place our Spring compost order, so that will be delivered next week. Then, the work really starts. We have two field blocks that have been tarped for several months, so we will start with them. I really can't wait to get in our second round of carrots, plus we are growing three varieties of beets. After we grew good beets for the first-time last Spring, I will use the same formula and try to harvest an amount that we can store for several months.
On Saturday we will plant potatoes. We are growing the Red Irish and Yukon Golds again this year. I researched growing purple potatoes, but I cannot special order them from any of the local ag stores, and our two most trusted seed suppliers are backordered. Now that we have the rotary plow, I can properly mound potatoes, so I'm really hoping for big harvest this year. If the harvest is profitable, I plan on ordering a potato harvester for the BCS tractor. It can also harvest onions, turnips, and beets. Right now, we dig all of the potatoes by hand, real tough work.
Next week, we will plant our first green bean and yellow squash plantings! Most other farms plant beans in the second half of March, and squash seeds are sown April 1, after the last frost. We only offer those crops to our farm share members. It's a lot of extra work, because the seeds must be started in the heated greenhouse, then transplanted by hand under our covered tunnels. We also have to use row cover on chilly nights above freezing to encourage their growth. I learned last year that really early squash must be amended with a soluble calcium to promote bloom production. There's a lot that goes into those crops, but we really love doing something special like this for all of you. After so many weeks of leafy greens, you have earned a special crop!
