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Long Winded Farm News From
Farmer Paige-
Hi everyone!
I write on this cold -- early springlike -- day and cannot believe it's the middle of May! Not to say that we're not going to be 'in for it' later this month, but I'll take every breath of chilly air that I can. We had a wonderful harvest morning watching the misty rain drops blanket the farm in frosty hues.
There's really no better weather for harvesting roots and greens than what we're experiencing today. Usually on a typical May spring harvest day, we have to yo-yo back and forth to the wash station and cooler and make sure to keep the produce in the shade so it doesn't prematurely wilt and so it'll last for you for the week. Instead, today, we could fill the truck with so many bins that it seemed like it would all topple out with one sharp turn. Yep, things are good on the farm.
What's new? Well our broccoli, cauliflower, cabbages, and carrots are starting to come in, we've got 2" squashes on our plants and 1" cucumbers, which means with a little sunshine, we should harvest our first later this week! Sugar snap peas are coming in strong and boy are they amazing. We've got our first basil and dill harvests and that'll be a tough choice for you all -- basil you'll see all summer long and dill is just a flash in the pan. Not to mention they both accent lettuce, peas and cabbages oh so well. We will be rotating through the broccoli, cauliflower and cabbages and will make sure that you'll get them each at least once, so don't fret if you're excited about one and less about the others, with our two successions, we're sure to have multiple harvests.
Last week was incredible on the farm. Despite the average warm temps, we worked our butts off -- basically weeding and mowing every misplaced grass or broadleaved plant (well, almost). We also planted our 2nd-to-last lettuce succession along with our 2nd round of peppers, squash, and cucumbers, our first melons, and winter squashes! Yes, we were and will continually be busy.
 | | beds ready to seed with winter squash! |
We had a great volunteer day on Wednesday and ended up with about 10 of us working hard and making the farm look great. Wednesday afternoon we visited a friend and fellow farmer, Katherine Kennedy over in Douglasville. Very educational for both the apprentices and farm managers. So good to see others in our community doing great work. We finished up the week with market harvest for our May Day celebration on Saturday; and if you were there, you know how much fun that was!!
I love thinking about how many bins of produce we harvest that end up populating your refrigerators and your bellies with goodness. Likewise, I love selling our organic vegetable starts and envisioning them growing and maturing with someone else's hard work and love. If only they could each tell their own stories.
 | | Maya, Justin, and Ryan, ready for planting! |
Saturday you should join apprentice Ryan for our free monthly farm tour -- meet at the farm at 9:30 and see all of the wonderful things coming along!
Read on for info about tomato planting!! -- Paige |
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Tomatoes, tomatoes, how to grow thee
At our first market on May 7th, I spoke about some tomato planting tips. Not sure if you all plant a token tomato plant or 50 tomatoes in your garden, pot on your porch, or by your mailbox, but if you do, read on. I hope these tips are helpful for you.
First -- What tomatoes want (a new hit pop single?)
-At least 6 hours of sun
-Plant after April 15th, or May 1st to be safe
-Lots of organic matter (decomposed -- ie, dark soil)
If your soil is crummy, add 3" of compost to every 6" you till/double dig
-If possible cover crop with winter covers (clover, vetch, rye, oats) and turn in to soil
-Rotate your tomato plants to help with diseases, nutrient management, and pests
Second -- What tomatoes to grow
-Heirlooms or hybrids?
Heirlooms are open pollinated cultivars introduced many generations ago
pros -- taste great, you can save their seeds, more unique
cons -- lesser fruit quality sometimes, more disease and pest susceptible
-Hybrids (F1) are bred in a controlled and organized way by seed companies (no they are not GMO and we DO NOT use anything GMO)
pros -- often uniform, prolific, and disease resistant
cons -- less options
-Determinate or Indeterminate?
-Determinate -- bushy plants that are productive over a shorter window of time (good for canning); Don't prune these!
-Indeterminate -- taller plants with suckers, plants can grow as tall as you'll let them; Pruning is OK!
Third -- How do you plant them?
-Plants need space! I suggest in a garden at least 1.5-2' in all directions (at least).
-Fertility -- use organic amendments, all purpose fertilizer ok, but may need to add additional calcium and phosphorus (for fruit quality and yields); bone meal provides both and is a renewable resource! yay!
-Plant your plants VERY deep -- talking 2/3 of the stem under the soil surface. This increases roots and your overall health and yields of plants.
-Water the plant in immediately.
-If you choose to plant in pots, use at least a 15 gallon pot.
Fourth -- What next? Maintenance
-Water with drip irrigation or right around the root zone not overhead (helps with foliar disease)
-Don't touch plants when wet from rain, dew and keep the leaves as dry as you can
-Water deeply and let soil dry until you water again. This grows healthy, deep roots.
-Mulch is a great thing -- helps prevent soil borne diseases, prevents weeds, and helps with moisture retention and even watering; we like natural mulches (wheat straw)
Fifth -- What do cages, Florida weave, and zip ties all have in common?
-We like to trellis our tomatoes to keep them healthy and productive and easy to harvest.
-There are many ways to trellis, cages are easy options for home gardeners.
-Do it early, no going back once your tomato is too big!
Sixth -- Suckers!
-For indeterminate plants, you can prune to make larger fruits and less crazy plants (less diseases, pests; easier to trellis, etc.)
-To do so, pinch the suckers between each leaf and stem.
-Be sanitary, if you touch a sick looking plant, wash your hands!
Seventh -- OH NO -- what's eating my fruit?
-Cutworms decapitate your plant (I hate these) -- use collars out of a TP roll or a paper towel roll
-Tomato hornworm -- worms the size of elephants, hand pick or wait for predatory brachonid wasps to lay white eggs in/on them (so cool!!)
-Tomato fruitworm -- hand pick (cut worms out of half eaten fruits) and if necessary, you can spray Bt (bacillius thurengensis) a beneficial bacteria that explodes the worms stomachs (doesn't effect anything but moths/catepillars and safe for humans)
Eighth -- OH NO -- my plant looks sick!
-Blossom end rot -- fruit with brown icky spot; caused from poor calcium uptake: a result of not enough calcium or too much or too little water. Mostly happens in the cooler months.
-Sunscald -- a white spot on the fruit with hardened skin/flesh; caused from too much sun! maybe you pruned too much? Tuck the fruits into the canopy to stop this.
-Splits or cracks -- too much water.
-Early, late blight -- crop rotation helps, also there's another beneficial bacteria (bacillius subtilis) that helps to fight off these fungi (Serenade Garden is the 'trade name'), also, pick off bad leaves.
-Wilts -- sanitiation, remove diseased plants and take a long, long way away. Don't compost diseased plants!
Ninth -- Can't I do something preemptively?
Yes!
-Sanitation -- keeping garden free of pests and weeds
-Solarization -- if your garden is overrun with diseases, try to lay black plastic for about 4-6 weeks in the heat of the summer -- it kills everything (good and bad) in the top few inches of your soil. This can help for cutworms, blights, and wilts.
-Fertility/soil nutrition/soil biology -- the healthier your soil and environment, the healthier your plant. The healthier your plant the more resistant to diseases and pests.
-Plant resistant varieties (most often hybrids).
Tenth -- Harvest time
-Harvest as ripe as you like, the riper, the better in my book.
-To ripen unripes, do so inside (not outside, not in the fridge)
-Don't store them in the fridge -- cold damage occurs at 50 degrees.
-We may despise the 90 degree days, but the tomatoes love them and become sweeter when it's hot.
Whew, hope y'all have a great tomato planting season!
Visit us at market if you'd like to see the plants that we have for sale, we've got about 45 varieties (we're planting 92 this year!).
Cheers,
Paige + fearless team
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This week's share
(this list is subject to change):
Note! This list isn't always 100% accurate. We've heard feedback that the newsletter is most useful arriving to your inbox on Monday. So, we make an educated guess of what we'll harvest on our Monday and
Tuesday harvest days. We'll do our best, but please understand if it's not exactly what you get at your distribution location.
1 bunch of chard, kale or collards
1 bunch sweet hakurei turnips (delicious raw, roasted, mashed, etc. + tops are great too!)
1 bag spinach
1 bu of sweet spring onions
1 bunch herbs
1-2 heads lettuce
1 bunch Chinese cabbage
sugar snap peas
Cabbage, broccoli, or cauliflower
Beets or carrots
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