Rehoboth Homestead

Remember, pickup will be at the house. 66 Jabez Allen.

Averages don’t really tell the story in many things.  This year it has been either too wet or too dry.  We are definitely wet enough now for a while.

I’m starting this Saturday night so it gets done.  I just got home from the premiere showing of Small Farms Rising.  This is a “feel good” film about three small, first generation Essex County farms.  It will premiere on Mountain Lake PBS Thursday at 9 p.m., with interviews with the farmers at 8:30 p.m.  I think you’ll enjoy it.

The first batch of sweet potatoes is ready this week.  Sweet potatoes come out of the cool ground starchy. They require a couple weeks of warmth, ideally around 85, to sweeten.  We have about 1/2 of them in the furnace room where it is warm.  I need to move them out and move more from the hoophouse into the warm furnace room to cure.  We had sweet potato tarts from our sweet potatoes at the film premiere today.  No, I don’t have the recipe.  It was a wonderful creation of Generations Restaurant.

Our fall spinach has not done well.  The germination is way off – I finally did a test and it is less than 10%.  So, I am buying in spinach from Fledging Crow for you this week.  We have seeded more of a different variety and it is coming up well, but won’t be ready until November.  Since the spinach usually comes up too thickly, I’ll mix the dead seed in with the good seed to space the plants out some. We do have a small amount from our first seeding that was spotty, but is now full size.  I am very pleased with how we are on schedule with some things, but weeding is falling behind, and that spinach needs weeding.

Speaking of weeding and things doing well.  As we free the late carrot planting from weeds, they look good.  Still small but good. I will pull the larger ones for you this week.  Beets are also growing gangbusters.  I was so pleased to get the potatoes and sweet potatoes dug and in, but am not ready yet to think about harvesting, washing, cutting the tops off, and bagging all those beets and carrots.  Some folks say root crops store better with the dirt left on, but after washing them through last winter, I am trying to get them mostly clean now rather than waiting.  They will need some touch up, but I’d like to get 95% of the dirt off.  The issue is that we don’t want to fill the septic tank with dirt, so things get washed outside in cold water, summer and winter.  The water drains onto the driveway, making an ice slick. If they are 95% clean, I’ll use just a little warm water, and maybe do them in the heated utility room sink. Not complaining, I’ll take the crop, but knowing the work ahead that can be very pleasant or miserable, depending on the weather and time constraints, I am a little apprehensive.

Swiss chard is growing wonderfully.  Remember we have recipes over in the products descriptions on the right.  Swiss chard we like with olive oil, garlic, golden raisins, and sunflower seeds.  I also had a great recipe for stuffed chard leaves from Laurel’s Kitchen.  Had brown rice and cottage cheese among other things.

Head lettuce was looking good.  Hopefully it will not get diseased from this weather.  I glanced at the tomatoes yesterday evening as the mosquitoes drove me in and saw quite a few heirlooms ripening.  I am not hopeful about them though with this weather – I have seem late blight on some of the fruits we have picked ahead.  Late blight loves cool wet weather.  But, we have had a good tomato and pepper year.

Let’s see if I can visualize what I expect this week.  From storage: red & yellow onions, garlic, several types of potatoes, sweet potatoes.  From the field: beets, lettuce, swiss chard, three types of kale, arugula, tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, radish, arugula, carrots, sunflowers, maybe salad mixes.

Timing of salad mixes is tricky.  They are quick crops, and how quick is very weather dependent.  I only harvest them for you, so that is once a week.  They go from not tall enough to cut to taller than we’d like within a week.  If we could forecast just how warm it would be each day, I could decide which day to plant them to have them optimum for you, but we can’t.  We had tons of it three days larger than I’d prefer for you last week.  This week it is even larger, or so far too small.  But things can change quickly in warm wet weather.  Tuesday update – hit it perfect this time.

Broccoli and related continue to be spotty.  Apparently this is the case across the northeast.  The northeast wasn’t the hardest hit by weather this year, but I hear reports from across New England and New York from farmers talking about the too wet/too dry/worst insect pests they’ve every had/where did all these crop diseases come from?  Fortunately, though we’ve had definite production problems this year, we have enough diversification in production and markets that we are OK financially (except the pickup truck will cost more than its worth to fix for inspection so there is an unplanned for big expense).

Monday – The chickens are small this week – around 4 pounds.  It has been cold and damp a good bit of their 4 weeks outside, and it shows in their lower weight gain.  They are healthy, but growing more slowly than the earlier batches did.

Hopefully we will miss the showers tomorrow.  Got a lot harvested today, but still need to harvest lettuce, tomatoes, and kale.

Have a great week.

It was a really hot high of 76 today. Since the 1000 strawberry plants I was expecting last week aren’t being shipped until tomorrow, I hope the heat keeps up.  It will also help the cover crops get good root systems for the winter.

We focused on finishing harvesting potatoes so I can plant winter cover crops. I can’t really tell you what to expect tomorrow.  I did notice that the snap beans have held up so you can pick them again this week.

I did take some photos last week.  I have repeatedly explained how squash bugs and cucumber beetles have decimated the squash family.

The plants were trying their best, but the beetles kept eating the skin of the cucumbers.

There are LOTS of squash bugs.

The black dots are flea beetles on Napa cabbage.

From recent experience, I expect we will have a full table tomorrow.

The rain gave me a bit of a break today.  Tony and friends butchered this morning bright and early. The broilers this week are 4 1/2 to 5 pounds.  We have smaller (3+ lb) female ducklings and one larger male (5+ lbs) plus duck breasts and legs.  Also have some fresh chicken breasts, legs, and livers.

Because of the rain we stayed out of the field today.  Instead we washed potatoes and got them into apple crates in the walk-in cooler, sorted tomatoes in the garage and hoophouse, threw out some old stuff that had been stacked after farmers markets and forgotten, cleaned up onions and garlic, weeded hoophouse, cleaned up work area in hoophouse, etc.  The weather was just downright relaxing. I even got some phone calls made (arranging to borrow mulch layer to plant strawberries, ordering cover crop seed, etc).  I have a chicken and variety of potatoes in the oven for a late dinner tonight – first time all summer we’ve had a roast chicken.

In case you haven’t noticed yet, it is only 9 p.m. and I am getting to writing this.  Usually it is 11 or so before I get the birds packed and weighed, but I got it done almost before dark.

Tomorrow will be interesting.  Keeping boots on (the mud likes to hold on to them) and staying upright will be a challenge.  I expect we’ll start in the areas where I have ground cloth down between the rows – field tomatoes, peppers, parsley, chard, statice, sunflowers, what is left of squash.  Also may have a helper tear more tomato plants out of the hoophouse to make room for fall seedings, just to keep them out of the mud a little.  I expect to have onions, garlic, and potatoes (already harvested and cleaned).  We are almost done with potatoes.  We have white, gold, red with white centers, purple with gold centers, blue with purple centers, red and white fingerlings, a European small potato, etc.  With the time crunch from not harvesting some stuff today, I don’t know that I will many varieties down for you this week – it may be standards. I found more sweet onions today so you will have what I expect to be the last of them tomorrow. To harvest in the morning, in addition to what is accessible with ground cloth – kales, broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, cauliflower, lettuce, beets.  Green beans will be u-pick.  They really need to be picked, and probably have some spots molding from the dampness since they were laid down by Irene.  I have managed to get the field tomatoes sprayed with copper hydroxide before the rain, spinach and salad mixes planted, etc, most potatoes dug. These took priority over harvesting beans Friday, Saturday after market, and Sunday morning before church.  I need to water some fish fertilizer in on the basil – it is showing nutrient stress, and we will have little if any tomorrow (but we did have absolutely gorgeous basil for soooo long, that I am satisfied).

The drive/parking area held up fine last week.  I took saw horses down last week to block the north drive if needed, and will do again tomorrow if it gets slippery.

Didn’t get much harvesting done so tomorrow should be busy, but did clean the garage some.  Cleaned garlic. Harvested hoophouse tomatoes. Harvested squash first thing this morning. Hadn’t harvested since Saturday morning, which was only 48 hours, but zucchini went from too small to harvest to oversize. Chickens are 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 lbs this week.  I have 4 “carcasses” from cut up chickens if someone wants them for stock. I did not bag them so advance notice would be helpful, but I can probably run up and get them quickly if someone wants them ($1/lb). Did cut up 4 chickens so have boneless breasts, tenders, and legs (and livers and hearts).  Also 4 ducks – three females around 3 lbs each, and a male around 5 lbs.  Cleaned the brooder house in preparation for our last batch of chicks Wednesday.  The setting hen hatched her chicks so there are babies for children to enjoy.  Mamma is extremely protective though so they probably won’t get to hold them.

The good – Weed control on much of the garden is really good.  No, make that excellent (one benefit of the dryness – this rain may change the weed status). Green King broccoli is heading.  Green King has larger beads than common commercial broccoli, and it wins taste tests. It’s stalk is tender too, and just as good as the “head”.  Cabbages look great.  I think we’ll have some cauliflower to harvest. Hopefully the kohlrabi is still almost perfect.  Kale and chard are doing well.  Lettuce should be good after this cool, rainy day. Tomatoes are plentiful, both from the hoophouse and from the field. I have two trays of obvious heirlooms harvested.  I saw one eggplant and a few peppers.

I remembered visiting a market gardener who planted her scallions on plastic mulch.  She’d pull the bunch up and drop more seeds in the hole.  Since I had the chance to use some plastic mulch this year I thought I’d try it.  Since I wanted to make best use of the plastic I planted the scallions on the edge of the tomato beds.  It has been so dry, especially out near the edge (since the drip tape is right along the tomato plants and they suck all the water up) that I have not been able to pull the scallions.  The rain the other night moistened the soil enough that I could pull the scallions.  I did not realize until an email list discussion this week, that the shape of staked tomato plants is such that rain drops on the leaves and runs down the stem.  That means the water made it through the hole in the plastic we made for planting.  I wondered how so much moisture had made it under the plastic.

The not so good – A gardener brought picture perfect cukes to give away at church.  I looked enviously – mine never look that good. I don’t know, don’t even want to know, what they sprayed it with to keep them looking so nice. Another market gardener had nice looking cukes the last couple weeks to.  Her explanation was that she planted so many that the beetles missed a few and those were the cukes she brought to market. Our cukes are really about done, between powdery mildew, cucumber beetles, and squash bugs.  I do have a small late planting that is producing. The zucchini even is incredibly scarred – they are chewing the outer skin off.  Inside they are still OK, but they sure don’t look attractive. It amazes me how the zukes and squash are hanging on and still producing.  We have later plantings that have not started producing yet.  Hope I can keep them protected (row cover until bloom, then copper and Pyganic for disease and insect protection.  I row covered the first two plantings, but did not do the copper and Pyganic (pyrethrin).  The bugs and mildew are so bad I can’t imagine the last planting has any chance without protecting it. I am strongly suspecting that the most effective way to make rain is to spray an organic fungicide (copper) or insecticide (bT or bacterial extract) on the crop.  Then it rains and washes it off so I have to do it again.  At this point I’ll do it again and take more rain.  We also have a few melons ripe.

Carrot and beet germination was extremely quick. That should be good since I planted later than optimal, but I scratched around Thursday to see if they were sprouting so I could burn off baby weeds just before the crops came up.  Nothing (except some weeds).  Friday afternoon carrots and beets were an inch tall.  I’m not kidding.  So back to hand weeding, or maybe I should say hands and knees weeding.

If you want to can or freeze pesto, let me know and I’ll harvest more basil for you.  Similar with canning tomatoes.  Our tomatoes have been selling well at $4/lb, 10 lbs for $30, 20 lbs for $40.  If you took all your points in tomatoes, you’d be getting a good deal.  We have plenty, so it is OK if you load up on tomatoes.

There should be some things I’m not thinking of right now.  Oh, plentiful sunflowers, but we will have a gap in availability after this flush, so if you’ve been wanting some, get them this week.

Hope all is well and you are having a good summer. It amazes me how much more we notice seasonal changes when farming.  It is getting dark earlier, so that I am getting to bed by 10:30, sometimes earlier.  Morning is coming later too.  I feel MUCH more rested.  Good thing I have help for a couple more weeks though because the shorter days mean less time to get things done.

New this week – more types of tomatoes.  The field tomatoes are starting to ripen.  Most of the heirlooms are in the field.  I planted some extras of the hybrids that are in the hoophouse, but for the most part, if it came out of the field, it is an heirloom, or at least a specialty. You will need to give them a rinse and rinse your hands.  Late blight, the fungal disease that was so rampant two years ago, has been found in a home garden near Burlington. Therefore, I am trying to keep a protective coating of copper on the tomatoes. We use an organically approved copper fungicide named “Champ WP”. Copper can seriously irritate eyes.  The challenge is that the copper has to be on the plant where a fungal spore lands and tries to take up residency.  If the fungal spore germinates and hits copper before it can get its tentacles into the the plant the copper disrupts the fungus’ metabolism.  It doesn’t work to put the copper on afterward.  Late blight, its equivalents in onions and cucurbits (downy mildew), cucumber beetles, and squash bugs are probably among the biggest drawbacks to organic production as compared to the pesticides the non-organic folks have available.  Late blight is not common this year so hopefully we will dodge the bullet and continue to have great tomatoes.  I have to tear the hoophouse tomatoes out at the end of August to make way for fall greens so am depending on those field tomatoes to keep you happy in September. We do have plenty of tomatoes at this point, so you can take as many of your points in tomatoes as you like. You can buy extras to can.  The price goes down with quantity.  We get $4/pound at the farmers market for tomatoes.  If someone buys 10 pounds we lower the price to $3/lb.  If they by 20 pounds, the price goes down to $2/lb.

The lettuce is small but I’ll harvest a lot of it for you.  Mostly it will be the Winter Density, that heirloom that is sort of a cross between romaine and butterhead.  We have a few butterheads also.

We have LOTs of fennel this week.  The bulbs will last several weeks but the foliage will start to brown so this is “fennel week”.  Look over to the right under the products list and click on fennel for a description and recipes. One benefit of a CSA is that you do get to try things you might not buy in the store since you are not familiar with it.  Please take a fennel.

Meg valiantly worked on carrots until after 7 tonight, so you will have carrots tomorrow.  The mice have declared them very acceptable, so you may get some with the tops of the carrot trimmed off.  We have lots of small ones to.  I suspect we have two or three weeks worth.  I have to make time to do some research.  We had quite a few that were limp when she dug them. Of course these were some of the prettiest ones.  Need to find out why.  My suspicion is that it is just dry, but they were at the end of the field that has more moisture.

Herbs – I am going to try just putting some cut herbs out and letting you take.  If you want enough to freeze, make pesto, make tabouli, etc, then you need a “bunch” which counts as an “item” or “point”.  But many of you just want a sprig of this and a sprig of that.  We won’t include a couple sprigs in your count – they are a bonus.  Having said that I need to qualify that a little.  We have a few rosemary plants, so everyone needs to limit themselves to a sprig.  Basil you may choose a free sprig or take a “bunch” as one of your items. The dill is heads for pickling and we have lots – ask and I’ll show you where they are to cut.  There may be cilantro – it was going to seed last I looked.  I like to seed dill and cilantro every couple weeks, but the dry weather has prevented such seedings, so there will be a gap.

Hot peppers.  Yes we have them.  No, I am not picking them because in the past I have picked them and put them out but they weren’t taken.  If you want some hot peppers, they are u-pick.  They are just uphill of the white hoops that may become a protective hoophouse for the field tomatoes.  The beginning of that bed is parsley, then celery, then catnip, then about 5 hot pepper plants.  Same guidelines as just mentioned about herbs – one pepper we don’t count.  A pint counts as one of your items.

Another experiment this week MAY be crew-cutting the chard.  It is a fast harvest way, but means you will take a large handful of chard out of the bin to make a bunch, and it will be whole plants, with various size leaves.  We’ll see if I have the guts to do it, but I know someone who does it that way and likes it.  The crew cut plants then regrow.  I normally walk around looking for nice leaves of various colors and cutting a leaf here and a leaf there to make a nice bunch.  Many of the larger leaves have holes or are aging so this is time consuming.  Apparently if we crew cut, and get it on a schedule of 1/4 of the plants each time, when we cut again all the leaves will still be nice.   I just am not sure the person who does this is as picky about the appearance of the leaves as I am, so we will see.  We have more than we are harvesting at this point so it is a good time to try it.

I think most everything else is the same as last week.  It felt hotter than I expected today, so I did an early harvest of squash, zukes, broccoli, and tomatoes but then packaged chickens and ducks since that was by the cooler.  Then I came in and got tech support for the federal FICA payments for employees and paid bills by a north window with a nice breeze coming in. Then we washed carrots and I sprayed copper on the field tomatoes since we had probably just enough rain last night to wash the previous application off.  This means everything else has to be picked tomorrow so it will be a busy day.  Plus I need to get work lined up for Meg to do while I am busy with the distribution. It will probably be picking and washing potatoes for you, but I hope she gets to seeding plug trays for you – lettuce, late fall broccoli, etc.

I am on email lists with other market gardeners around the country.  As hot and dry as I think it is here, Oklahoma and Texas have it much worse.  Count our blessings, and buy your grain staples now for winter.