A Wet Week!
Needless to say we had a wet week at the farm. It seemed to rain almost every day, at least enough to prevent planting in the fields most days. Over 3” of rain fell during the week. The only super nice day was Saturday so we wanted to get a lot done in every precious minute of good weather. The wet week also brought cooler temperatures and with the strange weather fronts moving through we were worried that we might have a hail storm. We had a bit of difficulty last week putting the delivery together as the walk-in-cooler that is at Scotts had some electrical problems. Fortunately Farmer Art saved us by providing space in his cooler. The use of the cooler space is very important to chill down the greens before the delivery.
Officially, summer starts on Thursday June 21st at 1:04 am. Though we won’t be up at 1:04 am, we will start the day at the farm around 5:00 am. Thursdays and Fridays are the best days to get the most field work done. On the agenda for this week are planting more rows of tomatoes, parsley, husk cherries and peppers. We also have to do some maintenance such as weeding.
Franklin Greenhouse Report: The greenhouse is being totally rolled over into new crops except for the ginger and rosemary. All the onions were harvested and are curing up in one of the on-farm greenhouses. The lemon grass has already been planted. On the agenda for plantings this week are some eggplant, radishes and more Oriental greens. A lot of celery has been planted in the greenhouse as well as at the farm. Fennel is already in. Some Mango Ginger was planted, but has been slow. They are just sprouting now.
From the Fields: The greens in the fields are growing nicely without any damage from the excessive rains we have been having. It appears that the white cauliflower and broccoli were stressed and therefore is in essence “shutting down” producing very small heads. The stress probably came from transplanting them during the heat wave the end of May. On the agenda will be transplanting replacements as soon as possible. The purple cauliflower is really looking good as are the peas. The fava beans are started to bean up and the yellow, blue and green peas are pea-ing up! The Chinese cabbage and regular cabbage are all heading up and should be on the agenda for delivery over the next few weeks. We were hoping to deliver the looseleaf Chinese cabbage tonight, but after the rain the slugs were in control. Chard, blue collards and green collards are doing well and the zucchini are ready to blossom. The peppers and eggplant transplants have taken well in the fields. We do have to replace some herbs but all in all they are doing well.
We continue to have problems with the round field. The water is not draining well. We had John run the tractor through it to create some ruts to see if the water will flow out. This is not working well at this point.
Farmer Rich bought a new brush-hog to keep the upper fields from over growing and hopefully get those fields back into hay production for mulch.
Animal report: We had a totally different animal problem this week. We had a visitor to the Franklin Greenhouse – a chicken! Apparently, a chicken from a neighboring farm just up the road from the greenhouse decided to hitch a ride on the landscaper’s trailer. It off loaded itself off the landscape trailer and found its way into the greenhouse. It was totally enjoying it’s time running up and down the aisles. Renee called Farmer Rich to report “there is a chicken in the greenhouse”! Needless to say Farmer Rich had to ask her to repeat the comment, not believing what he was hearing. Jim the property owner said he spent about 1 ½ hours trying to catch it to return to Farmer Maria’s.Weather report: After a wet week and some cooler temperatures, the start of this week appears to be mostly sunny and highs in the low 80’s. Some scattered thunderstorms are in the forecast and we hope they will not scatter over the farm.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Do you know someone that wants to support a local farm but hates to cook? A solution will be here soon. Chef Meredith of Bellamy Kitchen will be able to prepare meals from Catalpa Ridge’s weekly produce delivery. More information to come as we both put together the particulars on a Farm Share/Meal Share plan. The CSA delivery would be made directly to Bellamy Kitchen in Hoboken and the member would then pick up their prepared meals directly from Chef Meredith.
What’s Up & Growing in the Fields and Greenhouses:
| Broccoli Cabbage Celery Chard Chinese Cabbage Collards Cucumbers Eggplant | Escarole Fava Beans Garlic Ginger Green Onions Herbs Hot Peppers Husk Cherries Kale | Lettuce Peas Peppers Potatoes Radicchio Radishes Tomatoes Zucchini |
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