Hopefully by the end of this week we will have gotten back on "schedule" for plantings. According to my 'crystal ball" for forecasting the weather (Weather Underground) we will be receiving steady rains starting Tuesday evening and continuing for a week. Fields are ready to plant when the Farm Crew starts work tomorrow and I feel like we'll be able to get things planted/seeded over the two days to get us back to where we should be!
Like I've mentioned in previous Farm Happenings, we are still behind and while things should be caught up it is still going to cause to a delay in when we will harvest many different crops since they were seeded/planted later than "planned". But I'm feeling like we won't notice a real big effect because the upcoming rains look to be light and it always amazes me how plants seem to "catch up" with better growing conditions! We definetly have deviated from the "planting plan" I created over last Winter, but hopefully we won't notice it too much!
Your Sugar Snap Pea plantings last week were enjoyed by the deer more than ever before! With all the housing development going on around the Farm we are noticing more mammals (deer, rabbits, etc) enjoying the oasis for them that is the Farm! Along with the increases in mammals I'm noticing a decrease in many of the predators of the smaller mammals (rabbits, mice, ground squirrels, voles, etc) that we typically saw in large numbers here at the Farm, like Bull Snakes, Fox, Coyotes, Hawks, etc! Also, with all the wet weather we experienced early on, the pest insects (like aphids, flea beetles, Colorado Potato Beetles, etc) have really shown up in numbers that I've never seed before in 14+ years at the Farm! In past seasons I have sprayed Certified Organic insecticides sparingly at the Farm because our native populations of beneficial insects have been able to keep them in check! The beneficial insects are still here but aren't able to keep the natural predator/prey balance in check so I've felt the need to spray more this season! Rest assured all the sprays I use are allowed under the National Organic Program and are mainly derived from Tree Bark (Neem), Flowers (Pyganic), Bacteria (Spinosad, or Dipel) or elements like Kaolin Clay (Surround). I'm not ever spraying any one of these excessivly because of my fear that an insect/disease will develop a resistance to one of these products (if used too much) and then we'd have created a real problem!
With all the "negative" stuff I feel like I've talked about above let's really focus on the positive now! I've never seen Sugar Snap Peas throwing out some many flowers and pea pods than I have this year! In past seasons I've really felt the need to harvest them 2 times per week but the way they seem to be producing now we'll need to harvest them every other day because their maturing so quickly! I'm grateful that we decided to plant garlic in one of our high tunnels last Fall because of how wet the Fall was we couldn't field plant it! If we hadn't done that we would not be enjoying the garlic we get to now! I'm glad we have the high tunnels because they enabled us to enjoy some tasty Spring lettuce. Had we just relied on field planted lettuce there would have been none because how wet the fields were when they needed to be planted. Also, words can't express how grateful I am for having a dedicated Farm Crew this season that occasionally even pushes me to work longer days in order to cultivate the best season possible!!!
Have a great week,
Farmer Ben and the Crew
