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~ In the Box ~
Winter Week 5
Tuesday, March 12 |
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Click item for more info
(32oz jar)
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~ Recipes ~
That's Sean hiding amidst the pickles and kimchi. You may have met him at Green City Market or Logan Square Farmers Market, or delivering your box wherever you live. But when he's not doing the bidding of Tomato Mountain, chances are he's in the kitchen. His passion and his job often intersect, never more than this winter when he's been busy finalizing our new Recipe Index. Sheila, another TMF jack of all trades and self-described "cookbook addict," has meanwhile been busy enhancing our section on Preparation Tips. Both of these resources--and more--are available via the tab titled Recipes & More on our website home page. We hope you'll visit often!
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Questions?
Robin (in Chicago)
708-370-8017
or
Chris (farmer/owner)
608-712-1585
Check out our
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What a difference between the weather this spring and last spring. This time last year we had record warmth with temps in the 60's, 70's, and even one 80 degree day. On one crazy warm night, we had a low of 61 degrees at the farm. The birds and spring peepers (a small frog) were out in full chorus and it sounded like mid-April. This year it feels more like January, with lots of snow, cold, and wind. We had 8 inches of snow last Tuesday, and the high temperature today is not forecast to rise above freezing. To complicate matters, we had an inch of rain when it did creep above freezing these past few days. The result is flooding with about 6-8 inches of standing water  in our machine shed/barn. With freezing night time temps in store for all of this week, this water will freeze with all our tractors, implements, and supplies locked in place in it. We'll survive, but there'll be some surveying and fixing to do when it all thaws out and drains down in a couple weeks--we hope.
As far as the actual agriculture goes, it's been a little rough as well. On the spinach front, we're experiencing a learning curve and paying for some mistakes we made this winter season. In an attempt to work the soil as little as possible, as overworking it is hard on soil life and beats it up unnecessarily, we underworked the soil last fall when planting. In addition we left many remnants of the summer's tomato crop in the hoops to serve as organic matter, which also had the intended benefit for soil life as food. This combination of factors left many large pieces of organic matter in place, and these stems and unripe fruit became food and homes for the wrong life--aphids! The populations of these very common and normally harmless creatures exploded in many of the hoops, especially with the very warm December we had. As the tomato remains have slowly broken down, the spinach has grown into a beautiful canopy which very well serves as food and shelter for the aphids. While they are normally a slight nuisance at worst, the closed hoop houses, with no predators to eat the aphids, turned into unchecked breeding ground.
I mentioned in the last newsletter that we had not harvested some spinach soon enough, that it had looked great a week or two earlier, and that it went downhill in response to nitrogen deficiency. I can now see that most of the problem was due to the buildup of these tiny aphids on the undersides of leaves. They do not chew visible holes in leaves, but rather tiny holes that can't be seen and that compromise the ability of the leaf to retain moisture, in effect puncturing it. The result is a slow desiccation of the leaves, along with the yellowing we were seeing.
We're now spraying Pyganic, a broad spectrum organically approved pesticide, to control the situation. This is not an easy or perfect solution as the aphids are on the leaf undersides and largely protected from any spraying we do. The best bet is to harvest as frequently as we can, and then spray when the aphids retreat to the plant center and the very small leaves there. These leaves do not form a nice canopy, and are easier to penetrate with the sprayer.
Now that we more fully understand what we're up against, we'll be able to save five nice hoops of spinach for the last winter box and have a much better plan of attack for next winter's spinach crop.
Otherwise, the cold is making seed starting for the spring crop challenging. The good news is that we've got two hoops planted already, with another hoop going in today. By week's end we should have 5-6 total hoops planted. We'll need to apply warming row covers to speed up growth and have crops by the first spring CSA deliveries in mid-April.
This is all very much the opposite of last spring when it was so warm, we could not keep things cool enough, and we had to open up hoop houses early and often to prevent them from overheating! We're all very much looking forward to some sun and dry weather, and with some patience, we're sure to get it. |
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Chris Covelli
for Tomato Mountain Farm
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Our Winter Season is nearly over...just one more delivery the last week of March. After a brief hiatus, our Spring Season will start up on April 16. If you haven't yet signed up, you can update your membership to include the Spring Season or any of our remaining seasons.
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