A wagon full of beets!
The last few weeks have been hot, dusty, and very busy. Besides harvesting three days a week the crew has been hoeing, weeding, setting up irrigation, and planting thousands and thousands of little transplants into the ground. Around 3 acres of fall broccoli, cabbages, kales, and collard greens went in this week and last. The ground was bone dry and we were very thankful for our waterwheel transplanter that puts each plant in its own little mud puddle. We don’t have enough water to irrigate everything, but we have been running the irrigation pump about 20 hours a day – at 50 gallons per minute (our pond is pretty low). And now as I’m writing this post it’s finally raining, thank goodness.
Our spring planted crops have been more or less fantastic! The dry, hot spell has slowed down our summer squash production, and the spring cabbage and broccoli are just sitting there waiting to head up – but with this rain that could quickly change. Coming up on our harvest list are onions, bulb fennel, the first tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants, and the carrots are starting to size up too. We have a planting of rainbow chard that is coming along nicely, and a huge second planting of kale that looks amazing considering kale doesn’t like the heat.
During the next couple weeks we’ll continue to plant for the fall, turnips, fall radishes, spinach, the last planting of beets and carrots, arugula, more bok choi and Napa cabbage, and fall lettuces will all need to go in.
Here’s a list of what’s in our fields at this point:
At our Home Farm: lettuce, carrots, beets, spinach, next seasons strawberries, raspberries, rhubarb, fennel, celeriac, parsley, celery, dandelion greens, Swiss chard, dill, cilantro, high tunnel tomatoes, high tunnel peppers, high tunnel cucumbers. 15 total acres
Ledyard Rd: onions, leeks, bok choi, cabbages, Napa cabbage, broccoli, fennel, kale, collards, sunchokes, field peppers, eggplants, Swiss chard, basil, summer squash. 7 total acres
Rt 34: winter squash, watermelons, potatoes, field cucumbers, summer squash. 10 total acres
Green Rd: onions, leeks, broccoli, cabbage, Napa cabbage, bok choi, radicchio, escarole, summer squash, field tomatoes. 4 total acres
Old Genoa School Yard: fall broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, collards, kohlrabi, scallions, basil. 3 total acres
