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Dear Friends,
After a 19 day hiatus from rain ending in an intense heat wave the dry weather pattern finally broke and that sweet free water that fell from the sky was everything we hoped it would be. We spent those dry days irrigating both the crops and ourselves whenever and wherever we could. Since we don't have irrigation capabilities on all of our different fields it made us think of how fortunate we are to be farming this wonderful river bottom land that holds moisture so well even in such a prolonged dry spell.
We did, however, have a near emergency with our canteloupe crop growing on the land we farm up in Montague. Some of the soil on Tony and Melanie's Meadow Road land is particularly sandy and is well suited for growing canteloupe. But the dry weather in combination with those days where the mercury hit 95 plus was too much for our sweet litttle melons and their foliage began to wilt down badly and actually die back in some sections. We were in uncharted territory when it came to running irrigation up in Montague, we always knew it was a possibility but for the first time in our 3 year history on that land it became a necessity. Tony and Melanie were kind enough to offer up the well point they drove a few years back which is convinently located right on the edge of the field. We sprang into action and a few hours later we had our drip tape lines (laid before planting in the spring) dripping and together with the canteloupe we breathed a collective sigh of releif. The canteloupe crop looks great and we expect a good harvest to continue through this week and possibly into next.
Another task that broke up the routine of the week was the garlic harvest. Last Wednesday and Thursday we spent from after lunch until evening harvesting, bunching and hanging to dry roughly 30,000 bulbs of garlic. The crop overall looks better than average. We'll cure it in the barn for the next several weeks but you will start to see it in the share in September.
As the summer has surged on here at the farm some of you may be wondering why you haven't seen the lower field (by the river) filled out with crops. This year we are working together with Scott and Ferdene who we rent the lower field from to fallow (not plant a cash crop) some of that land. The land has been constantly farmed for many years and it was time to give it a rest. Fallowing land has many benefits. It breaks up pest and disease cycles, adds back valuable organic matter (when you plant a cover crop on the land), and gives you the ability to flush out and easily kill multiple successions of weeds. Since we plowed the field in April this is what we have been doing (it is called bare fallowing). There have now been several generations of weeds that have germinated and we've been able to easily do them in with our harrow. By doing this we are reducing the overall "weed seed bank" in the soil meaning that in future years when we grow a cash crop on that land again the weed pressure should be reducded and easier to manage (in theory). We will be seeding cover crops on the fallow land this week so pretty soon you can expect to see a blanket of green covering the bare land in the lower field.
We'll be picking our the first of the field tomatoes this week (a little later than normal). It will start off slow as we are only picking from the one variety that is ready right now but you can expect you'll be flodded with tomatoes very soon.
Things have been a little crazy around here lately since Cayden was born and we've yet to schedule a farm potluck for this year. It has been on our minds and we'll be sending out a separate email soon with potluck dates. We'll have one in August and one in October (the annual pumpkin carving potluck) so watch for that email this week. As always enjoy the harvest!!
On behalf of the farm crew
Jason, Sarah, Olivia, Max, Maryn, Ben, and Kristen...
Your Farmers
Rob and Meghan
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