Ken has been mulching! Why? Mulch has many advantages over open soil – lowers weed pressure, moderates soil temperatures to promote microbial life, adds organic matter and fertility to the soil. We have used several different mulches. When we first met we would let the area around the yard grow, Ken would mow with a sickle mower, I would rake and we’d pile the trailers and unload onto the field. For several years we got …
Greetings from the Garden! This week’s CSA box has salad and braising greens, garlic scapes, green onions, snap peas, beets or carrots, European turnips, herbs, the last of the asparagus Field Notes. Green manures and mulch. Ken is juggling the usual sequential plantings of greens, tying up tomatoes, irrigating the greenhouses, cultivating with a push to get areas either planted with green manures or mulched. Green manures are like living mulch – they lessen …
Greetings from the Garden! This week’s CSA box has salad and braising greens, herbs, garlic scapes, green onions, snap peas, carrots or beets, asparagus, and strawberries. Field Notes. Ken has started mulching. First he cultivates, then pulls any larger weeds, then spreads mulch to cover the soil – it keeps soil temperatures moderate to promote microbial life in the soil, and it lowers weed pressure. Ken tries to keep soil covered with either mulch or …
Once the bulk of the planting is done, and the heat of summer arrives, Ken starts mulching. Some years the weather is such that Ken focuses on planting green manures rather than mulch; most years he does a lot of both. With the season forecast as hot and dry Ken will focus more on mulch this year, He ALWAYS plants some green manures, but it is difficult to get green manures established in heat – …
I love strawberries. They are usually the first fruit after a long winter. And I don’t mind picking a limited quantity bent over or on my hands and knees. The Germans, I am told, call them ground berries – and for good reason. Finding strawberries grown without chemicals is challenging. They are usually one of the top crops listed on the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen crops with pesticide residue. Strawberries are …
Greetings from the Garden! This week’s CSA box has lettuce, salad greens, braising greens like kale or chard, green onions, asparagus, herbs, and snap peas. Field Notes. Ken is busy; that seems to be a common spring theme. He is wrapping up the full season plantings with sweet potatoes (they came late) and next season’s strawberry plants, and starting fall plantings of root crops like beets and carrots. In between rain he cultivates. And when …
Mark your calendars! We have set the date for the annual Farm tour. SUNDAY, JULY 24TH 2 – 4 P.M. RAIN OR SHINE $10 per person Tour includes garden, fields and green houses with a garden lunch after tour Reservations appreciated so we know how much food to prepare
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 …
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 …
