If you don't ever visit the part of the farm where the weeds are, do they not exist?

This week it's almost the solstice. Summer is just around the corner, hot days, short nights, and full season crops await us. I'm happy this week to report that the farm is doing ok. We've managed to get a lot of crops in the ground, do some weeding, and harvest twice a week and go to market twice a week. The peppers are the latest thing we did a serious planting of. They look really good, most are flowering, and I caught one with a tiny fruit on it. People ask if we grow fruit. I forget that we do... we grow tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, zucchini, cucumber, and even a few melons. All of those crops flower first, and either are self-pollinators and make fruit, or need the help of insects to pollinate the flowers and form real fruit. All of those crops take a long time to come, but they're just around the corner. The Maine season is so short, that before I know it, we'll be harvesting squash and glad that we transplanted all of those onions in late May.

It's hard for me to have lots of projects in my head at one time. But I think we have only a few major plantings left, and then I can focus on the weeds on our farm. Potatoes are left, and then cabbages for the fall, and carrots and beets for the fall, etc.

I went to a concert last Sunday, it was fun, and chatted for a while with someone who had some farming in his past. Someone asked him where he kept his weeding tractor or tool, and he just held up his hands, waiving his fingers. I was thinking about that a lot this week. Weed management is a huge component to good organic farming practice. Without chemicals to spray for weeds and for pests, you're left using other tools that may be at your disposal. some people use tractors, others hand tools like a rake or hoe, and some of us just crawl around on all fours through the beds, pulling out each weed we see. Luckily, my vision isn't all that good, I'm rather near-sighted, and can't see all of the weeds off in the distance.

But as I mentioned before, the solstice is in a few days, and after that, the crops will fill out more, blocking sun from the weeds, and they will hopefully be more manageable. And as Pete's friend Jeff would say, what we're here to do is to grow vegetables, not to eradicate all the weeds on this farm. I hope any of you reading this remember that bit of wisdom as you're weeding your garden or farm. Have a good week.

Good and Bad News

I've realized that we mostly write when stuff is going good, or when it's about onions. Well, this post will have both, as life usually goes that way.

Good news: we had our first market day today, and it was super fun. We had some gorgeous and tasty produce to sell, not a lot of variety, but the quality was there. We met some fantastic folks who we like and hope to get to know better over the season. Probably one of the best things that can happen is when you meet people who are as excited about your produce as you are. The morning was a date for us, we got to leave town together, and was the longest by far we were standing upright instead of bent over vegetables. The only bad news for the day was immediately after, not going more than a quarter mile through town, when we parked at the natural food store, we both got hefty tickets for not wearing seat belts. I know organic costs more than conventional, but most farmers aren't quite rich yet. We'll be sure to be buckled up....

Good news: we have enough onions that we can start replanting them today , over a month after we planted the first ones.

Bad news: we lost about 98% of the first planting, due to wireworms.

Bad news: the wireworms will probably take out the onions we plant today, and in fact, wireworms have no real solution, even expensive organic pesticides don't really solve the problem, and they really like root crops.

Good news: I think we can avoid the worst of the damage by planting this late, maybe their life cycle will encourage them to move deeper into the soil as the heat comes on, and they won't damage all of our crops. Maybe.

Goods news: We have huge tomato plants in our large hoophouse/greenhouse that are full of flowers, and we even have a couple of white tomatoes setting.

Overall, we're very positive about things, and it was so nice to have some encouragement by folks today at the market. It makes going back to the field now to plant onions and be bent over again so much more fun and exciting, when you know that people want your produce. Yay!

spring planting

We're making progress with planting all of our crops for the season. We fell behind for a while since spring was so early, but Monday night we had a frost, and managed to get many of our tender little plants covered up with a few layers of protection. Officially, last frost day in our area is May 15th, but we wonder with climate change if that is moving ahead or not.

Took some pictures of us. Enjoy!

Spring planting

Discovering that you've been doing things the hard way

we've been pretty busy with lots of things. Most of, wondering where all the time goes in the day!

Today we started transplanting onions into the beds of the field. We learned that there's a lot more that goes into planting than just putting the vegetables in the ground. Our soil is incredibly low in organic matter, and a bit sandy to boot. That translates for people who don't know, very porous soil that doesn't hold moisture very well. We haven't had rain for a while, which for most Maine farms isn't a problem with all of their organic matter, but for us, difficult, because we've been having trouble with our water pump from the bay, and the tides aren't currently aligning themselves to when we need to pump the water in. So we've been filling 5gal buckets at home in the morning and trucking it the mile to the fields. Anyway, we got 3 and a half rows planted. Pretty good. We'll do more tomorrow, hopefully, because....

our mentor farmer, Jill, came over to visit us for the first time this evening. And when she saw our three rows of onions in each bed, all 4 inches apart, she asked, "why are you planting those all individually?" According to her, you can plant three little baby onions together in one bunch, with a greater spacing (12 inches) apart, and not compromise the eventual size of your onions by having those three little starts all together. Plus, weeding becomes a lot easier when you have more space to get tools in there. PLUS you don't have to open up a new hole and worry about each individual little delicate onion transplant every 4 inches! Yikes! I wish we had known this before we spent the whole day planting onions! :) We'll probably keep doing it the old way, since that's what we know, and with heavy irrigation this summer, we hope to have very large onions. But, we'll also try out a row with the different method, and see if we really can get away with less work, and same result.

I'd love to hear about others' discoveries of doing things an easier way, especially if the initial attempt was a) incredibly time-consuming and b) back-breaking.

Visit

A bit ago we got to see our old friends Kate, Sara and Tracey. They brought some beautiful weather with them, and it's been nice ever since. The snow is all melted on the field, and in fact, the ladies helped to 'pop' garlic, to get it ready for a late planting. Here are some photos of what the field looks like now.