We harvested the first row of garlic Saturday – looks nice. Garlic needs to be “cured”, dried, for storage, but it is incredibly juicy and wonderful fresh. We have it fresh in the farmstand, and you can only get it juicy fresh, well, when it is fresh, as it is being harvested, so enjoy it now. We also got our “dilly scapes” back from the Hub on the Hill. Thirty-six jars of “dilly scapes” and 36 jars of “dilly toppers” – same stuff but chopped up instead of spears. Great in potato or egg salad, on crackers, etc. It is basically a dilly bean recipe but using garlic scapes instead of beans.
We are also putting out fresh Candy onions – juicy and sweet. And the broccoli is still phenomenal, with a large planting of cauliflower coming in within the next couple of weeks. Hopefully it will stay cool enough that it is pretty. In the heat the heads open some and turn purplish.
The CSA may get sweet corn this week. It is going to be close for Tuesday. I planted a newer variety that supposedly stays sweet and tender for a week so we do have some leeway.
I think I count 12 little heads. This afternoon I went out and there was a wet cold one, almost dead, away from the group. I warmed it in the sun and put it back under. I can’t tell if there is another baby in that open egg at the top or not. The one I found was dry on the back and bottom but wet on the top, which is strange. In the photo it looks like a dry back end of a duckling (which is also strange) so might have been a late hatcher and was kicked out but more likely the first momma hassled the group and this one was fought over and got tossed into the waterer. Don’t know if it will make it or not. First batch is down to 4 (from an 11 start). We did find one body yesterday – I think it had just gotten lost and huddled by the farmstore door but by itself got too chilled overnight. No sign of damage or problem. The others have just disappeared – yes the crows are still around. Tony put up a hunting blind this afternoon to try to reduce them.
It is becoming a maddeningly good year for you if you are crop pest. Potato leafhoppers hitch a ride on storms coming in from the south, and we’ve had plenty of those this spring. They suck juices from the ends of leaves, damaging the internal transport systems and gumming up the works. I am seeing the damage on potatoes, eggplant, clover, dahlias, etc. They seldom kill but can really reduce yeilds.
I mentioned squash bugs on the hoophouse cucumbers last week. I have two plantings of zucchini at different ends of a bed. The ones on the north end have had almost unbelievable numbers of squash bug eggs on them, but I haven’t actually found many adults. I am finding more adults on the other planting, and on the yellow squash and pickling cukes by them. At this point, I think the cucumber beetles are doing more damage, and may acutally do in the hoophouse cukes – yikes! I am trying to trap them on yellow sticky paper (cucumber flowers are yellow) but it isn’t working well. Non-organic folks using an insecticide that gets inside the cucumber plant and moves throughout the plant all season, killing the beetles after they feed. Organic folks don’t have good options – a couple naturally derived very short-term sprays. As soon as new ones fly in, have to spray again, so I don’t. The squash bugs I can squash, at least in the hoophouse where the cucumbers are pruned and trellised so I can see them. Cucumber beetles are too small and numerous.
I am really grateful for that insect netting that I have over the broccoli/cauliflower/cabbage. It has done a great job at keeping out cabbage worm moths, and an excellent job and excluding flea beetles. However, it also excludes lady bugs and other beneficials, and I found a grouping of napa cabbage that were incredibly overrun with aphids.I have never seen aphids anywhere near like that. The worst I get are in spring spinach and greens – enough that you don’t want them but nothing like this.
And either the season just really crept up on me, or Colorado potato beetles are building up faster this year. Actually walking the potatoes looking for the larvae and adults is kind of peaceful (if you ignore the “peacefulness” of killing them). Mostly I squish, but there are lots of the youngest/tiniest right in the tops or new leaves, so I am going to try the soapy water in the bucket approach and try to knock the small ones off into it. So far I have been pretty much destroying the new leaves trying to squish them. The larger/older ones are easy, but I don’t want to let the tiniest grow larger because I might miss them and they could become adults, which then lay a lot of eggs producing many more. The name of the game is keep the first and second generations minimized to keep the population down. There is an organically-approved spray which I can use, but prefer to just hand pick as long as I can. Usually I at least make it through the first two generations OK, but some years have to spray the third. The point then is of course to minimize plant damage but even more to prevent a large population from overwintering and becoming a big problem the next year.
But diversified farms are resilient. Some things crash every year while others do exceptionally well.
