Eggplants growing in the field, just a few days after planting.
Unlike most garden hobbyists, we are planting something out here in almost every season. We have to keep planting in order to supply our CSA with fresh produce almost year-round! However, there is still that week or two in the late spring when we feel like we “put in the garden” in the more traditional sense.
This last week was the peak of that summer planting action. On Friday alone, Casey and I sowed and transplanted half an acre of summer season crops: sweet corn, winter squash, zucchini, green beans, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, and so much more. On Monday, we put in another 14 rows of potatoes with help from some CSA members. These are all crops that grow and mature during the main growing season of summer. Many, like the winter squash and potatoes, will get stored for use all winter — but they still grow during the summer.
Yes, the focus of May is definitely on ground prep and planting. We see it all around us in neighboring fields, as people put in their corn and kale and green beans and more. Brown fields are showing tidy lines of green as the newly sown seeds emerge.
May is also a funny time of year — the rate of plant growth is speeding up, but we’re still used to the earlier weeks of spring when growth was almost painfully slow. Now we look at a new kale planting and wonder how long we’ll be able to pick it for the CSA — the answer is that it will likely be sooner than we expect, because we’re still somewhat “calibrated” for the slower part of spring. This is the time of year when CSA farmers across the country start feeling the nervous jitters in their stomachs because it just doesn’t seem possible that all those little lettuce and kale plants will be producing in time for those early June shares.
Of course, we’ll already well into our CSA season, but the transition from our over-wintered/storage/greenhouse crops to field-grown spring/summer crops still inspires some of those same May tummy jitters. Even in our 13th year of farming, spring is still a surprise in this way — how May arrives and suddenly leaves arrive in profusion and plant growth takes off. The rapid growth will continue for the next few months as we watch our own lines of green grow and grow.
So far, only a few of last week’s direct-seeded crops have emerged. The calendula was up first — such a vigorous flower. We sow calendula and phacelia flowers inter-mixed with our vegetable crops in order to provide food and habitat for important beneficial insects that prey on other insect pests. We have seen a huge difference from their presence in our fields (most especially when we sow them in with our Brussels sprouts plantings, which are prone to being over-run by aphids). But we also enjoy their beauty. Calendula blossoms are a cheerful orange smile, and phacelia unfolds its long periwinkle spiral blossoms over a long period of time (pollinators of all kinds love phacelia blossoms). Both will end up in our house in bouquets once they are blooming!
This afternoon, after the CSA harvest was in for the day, Casey and I began one of our favorite annual tasks — thinning the apples in our orchards. As the trees have matured, this task has become bigger and bigger! But it’s delightful work to stand in our now very leafy and verdant orchard and carefully pick off all but one apple on each spur (the little woody bit of branch that produces apples each year). Doing this helps ease the disease pressure on the fruit and allows each individual apple to grow bigger. We’ll be working on this task off and on for many days. Thankfully, as I said, it’s very pleasant work and something to look forward to. It’s also satisfying to look at a tree that is loaded with thinned fruit and imagine the bins and bins of apples that we’ll pick from each tree. Yum!
We’re always looking ahead around here. The work of the farm is such an endless cycle — we find ourselves enjoying the harvest from one season while we plan ahead for harvests two seasons later (whether that be in the form of planting or thinning fruit). The cycle of seasons propels us forward. Here we g(r)o(w)!Enjoy this week’s vegetables!Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla~ ~ ~Meet this week’s vegetables:StrawberriesSugar snap peasFava beansCauliflowerFennel bulbsChardZucchiniWinter squashPotatoesGreen garlicGarlic scapes
- — These are the fun “twirly” bits of green that grow out of the top of some garlic varieties in the spring. They are tender and delicious. You can chop them up (all the way to the little bit at the top) and add them to sautéed foods or to salad dressing … or just roast them and eat them!
And this week’s extra goodies from the farm:
- Eggs — $6/dozen
- Fresh pork — We just picked up a new batch of fresh pork cuts from the butcher this week! This is our last pork for the foreseeable future. We have available: pork chops ($12/lb) and various bits for roasting: shoulder roasts, shanks, etc. ($8/lb). We also have organs and bones available ($4/lb). (Yummy bacon and ham coming soon!)
- Bratwurst! — Artisan-made without any added nitrates or sugars. $12/package (one lb packages). Only a few packages left!
