News from Magicland Farms

Our sweet corn this year started real late, because of below normal temperatures so far this summer. It wasn't until last Friday (July 24) that we started selling it. This work week, which starts on July 27 and ends on August 1, we will start on two patches-one yellow and one bi-color-and finish up the two patches we started last week.   All in all we planted 36 different patches of corn. Unless September and early October are much above normal, we plan on having nice tender sweet corn until frost. (Also see my closing comments).
            In addition to the start of our sweet corn harvest, this week also starts the week of our apple harvest with the refreshingly tart, juicy and crisp Quinte variety-which is our first apple to ripen. Our apple crop this year is outstanding! Most of our bearing age apples have a nice crop and since we have over 100 varieties of apples, it looks like we will have a great selection this year. Keep in mind that our apples start ripening in late July starting with Quinte and end with Fuji, Granny Smith, Braeburn and others in early November. Since the apples ripen consecutively, at any one time between these dates, there will be at most 20 varieties for sale. Many times, especially early in the season, we will have just a few varieties available.
            We also have a nice peach crop. Me thinks we will pick some of our earliest ripening peach, Flamin Fury PF1, this week. This peach is great eating but it is a clingstone. Also we plan on picking Candor this week. Its outstanding characteristic? It doesn't brown after cutting! It too is a clingstone. In a week or two we will have Early Red Havens (a different variety from the regular Red Haven, which we will have later) and these usually do tend to break free from the pit when the are very ripe. Our golden plums are also nearly ripe.
            I promised last week a hint of what Joe Bastardi thinks about the fall forecast. To be perfectly honest, you have to read between the lines he writes to figure it out-he's more into winter forecasts since that's where the money is. But as far as I can determine, I believe he figures on a mild fall and perhaps a bit dry. This is what me thinks as well. A mild fall is nearly perfect for us. The worst scenario is a cold fall when everything freezes early. The next worse scenario is a hot fall when all the apples get soft way before they should. This too warm fall scenario has happened more frequently the last ten years than the frigid one. To combat this we put in a walk-in cooler. This cooler is cooled by a room air conditioner that is controlled by an external microcontroller based device which I designed and built. I now am selling kits for this device which I call A Smart Room A/C Controller. I wrote an article detailing my design and it was published in the October 2008 issue of Nuts and Volts magazine. You can find more information about it by visiting Magicland Electronics.
            How about this winter? Well I will write about what Joe Bastardi thinks, as well as NOAA, in an upcoming newsletter.

Ciao, Tom