Greetings from the Garden! This week’s CSA box has lettuce, salad and braising greens like beet thins, endive, and Napa cabbage, the last of spinach, asparagus, sun chokes, green onions, radishes, herbs, and the first of the snap peas. Field Notes. This is one the year’s busiest times for Ken. He is juggling so many things: planting the sequential crops like lettuce, planting the last of the “full season” crops like potatoes, …
The days are lengthening; summer approaches. Ken has been excited that we have been getting rain; the same rain has kept him busy keeping his crops ahead of the weeds. Once the soil is no longer wet and gummy, Ken cultivates; it is easiest when the weeds are small, not once they are large enough to require bending and pulling!. Most sunny days, he announces, “It’s a fine day for slaying weeds!” He continues to …
The spinach season varies each year with weather. Spinach, like most greens, does best in cool damp weather. With the sharp weather changes in spring, there is a time when the plant leaves get thinner and smaller as the plant starts to shift energy from making leaves to producing seed. When growers say bolt, this is what they mean. The plant has shifted its energy, and it is only a matter of time until the …
Greetings from the Garden! This week’s CSA box has lettuce, spinach, salad and braising greens, Napa cabbage, green onions, radishes, herbs, and asparagus. Field Notes. Ken has been juggling tasks around rain. After a couple days of dry weather he gets out and cultivates the garden, field, and around the mobile high tunnel. Once we got the last of the perennial flowers out of the loop on the drive, Ken moved the hens down near …
Greetings from the Garden! This week’s CSA box has lettuce, spinach, salad and braising greens, beet thins, onions, radishes, potatoes, sun chokes, herbs – cilantro, oregano and marjoram, and asparagus Field Notes. Spring is a busy time on the farm. The rain was welcome; it meant crops that had been standing still were able to pop! It also meant new weeds could germinate and Ken vigilantly got out once it got dry enough and started …
Ken works to keep soil covered. He often says, “Naked soil is dying soil.” He means that either mulch or green manures will maintain moderate soil temperatures to promote microbial life, prevent erosion, add nutrients, – so many things! Ken often mulches. He also likes to plant green manures. What are green manures? It is a crop intended to promote soil health rather than a crop to be harvested. Green manures are often …
Greetings from the Garden! This week’s CSA box has greens – lettuce, spinach, salad and braising greens, beet thins, potatoes, parsnips, sun chokes, onions and potato onions, cilantro, dill, and asparagus Field Notes. Ken has been busy on several fronts – mowing rye in the field, cultivating established beds, planting in field, transplanting by the mobile high tunnel and garden. Spring is a busy time Often I am in the house preparing meals or helping …
When I met Ken over two decades ago, friends told me it was obviously serious – I was moving my perennial flowers to Turtle Lake. Ken tilled an area, and I planted. It was not the same as my established beds in the city. I battled poison ivy, weeds creeping from under a rock pile, etc. Ken moved the rocks, and really helped over the years. But first an old knee injury and then sciatica …
Pigs here are sequentially grazed. Once they dig up one space they are either moved to a new space or their area is expanded to include new space. Ken plans each season so that pigs get new space and are not back in an area for at least three years. This year the piglets started east of the garden. About a week ago it was time for what I call the big pig rodeo – …
Greetings from the Garden! This week’s CSA box has greens – lettuce, spinach, salad and braising greens, parsnips, sun chokes, potatoes, cilantro, and asparagus. Field Notes. Whew! We had 80+ degrees one day and under freezing a couple nights later. It was a bit shocking. Some pepper and tomato plants got nipped inside the green house, and Ken will replace them. we are watching the fruit – last year we lost several apples and most …
