Notes from the Field

I’m feeling grateful to be writing this in air conditioning with a glass of cold lemonade by my computer. Boy has it been hot. The heat has been great for zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, and watermelons (next week!). The heat hasn’t been great for lettuce and our greens. You may have noticed we’ve been short on lettuce the last few weeks, as our plantings keep bolting (going to seed) before they size up for harvest. The heat has been a little tough on your farmers too, but our fabulous crew just keeps on trucking!
Here’s a quick round up of what we’re up to:
Last week we finished all of the big handweeding projects on the farm, and started using hoes and our cultivating tractor (thanks to volunteer Mark M finishing up a many-week-tractor-improvement-project!) to stay on top of small weeds. We seeded lots of quick-growing greens (arugula, baby kale, lettuce) and storage radishes for fall sales and CSA. The crew tidied up our tomato fields to make it easy to harvest in the coming weeks, and we harvested our first tomatoes on Friday. We had two very full harvest days and the farm stand looked abundant. I hope you were able to enjoy some of the bounty!
This week we’ll continue keeping our fields tidy by hoeing, mowing and using the cultivating tractor. We’ll start harvesting larger quantities of tomatoes, which means we harvest five mornings each week! We’ll also transplant our final kale, chard, and collard seedlings for the fall.
Our crew is starting the day early tomorrow to maximize field time during the cooler morning hours. On that note, I’m cutting this short so I can get to bed at a properly early hour.