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.

Getting the row cover on the sweet corn and zukes Monday morning was not bad at all. Wasn’t cold, and I was able to use the breeze to unfold and position the row cover instead of fighting it. I just laid it out flat over them. Corn and zuke were fine – even the three corn plants that were not covered for comparison.

The Clinton County Health Department got a grant to improve access to local vegetables and fruits, and offered growers small grants. I chose to get a fine netting to keep cabbage moths from laying their eggs, becoming those little green worms, in our broccoli/cabbage/etc. Also got 10 foot lengths of EMT and a bender for supports to keep the netting off the plants since the insects will lay their eggs through the netting if in contact with the plants. As soon as I got it I made the support hoops but put row cover over them to protect them from wind and cold. Well, they are 4 feet high and caught the wind so need heavier/better supports. But wind goes through the netting so we unrolled it and cut a length and put it on. Didn’t check this afternoon to see but we haven’t had wind. Did make the sandbag weights at least twice as heavy so hopefully it will hold it in place (harder to move from place to place too).

It has been an eventful bird week. No more predation and caught one male raccoon. Caught Red Roo and Mr. Muss in a cross-the-fence stare down. They must have kept it up for 15 minutes or so.

Moved the first batch of broilers out of the brooder and three-weeks-one-day old. They were very ready, but it was the first dry day, and an excellent day it was for their move. The “tractors” as the moveable pens are called, are 12 x 12. We put heavy felt (or old comforters, blankets) on two sides to block wind and make a “warm room” in one corner that has a heat lamp, but most holds their body heat at night, and they put out lots of body heat. I turn the heat lamp on to lure them in, then have been able to turn it off and they keep their space warm.

The pullets got moved to down to the maple tree now that there is good green growth.

Bees are enjoying the dandelions. I can hear them buzzing as I walk along.

The electricity gets turned on tomorrow for the field well, deer fence, and farmstand. We are awash in eggs so I expect to open the farmstand by week’s end in hopes of gaining more customer traffic. Added spring onions to the farmstore frig this afternoon. None of the greens planted this spring, in the “greens hoophouse” or the field, have taken off. The field has been cold, and I have kept that hoophouse open (cold) in an effort to keep the overwintered salad and kale from bolting. The last of the overwintered greens will be harvested this week, and hopefully with the moisture and warmth the spring planted will take off and we’ll have greens for the farmstand.

That is about it at this end. Appreciated the dry spell to run the sweeps under the field weeds, and appreciate the rain for all the transplants I tucked into the field.

They arrived about 11:30 from Penn Yan.  The truck,  trailer, and one of the Penn Yan men who works with these hoophouses.  We had two helpers, plus Chico Braun and helper Andrew came over, since Chico also had a hoophouse in the trailer.

This is VERY different from our other hoophouse.  This one had welded side panels which bolt together and sit on top of the ground.  It will be held down by large screw anchors.  The sidewall panels are 5 feet high and 24 feet long.

The arches also were welded together.  They are 20 feet wide. The bottom sides drop into holes in the top of the sidewalls.

We unloaded, then had lunch and they left to deliver Chico’s, probably about 1 o’clock.

Amazingly, here is what it looked like at 3:30. I say “amazingly”, because our other hoophouse started with laying out a perfect rectangle, pounding 2 1/4″ posts into the ground, bolting metal tubes onto them, then putting up heavy curved tubes and joining them at the top while they wiggled around.  It took several days to get to this point.  There is still a lot of work to do here.  Tony put the purlin up later this afternoon – a metal strip fasted to the center top that stabilized the arches in position.  Next is drill holes in the top sidepiece to screw metal channel for “wiggle wire” that will hold the plastic in position.  And drill and place eye-bolts to hold webbing to hold the sides close to the frame.  And the plastic.  And the endwalls.  But, this is definitely the easiest hoophouse to put together I have seen of heard of.  It is made by a farm family near Penn Yan.

I may actually be able to plant into it early next week, though it is late for anything to grow this fall.  There are some head lettuces in the field that have just been sitting there, not growing noticeably.  I may dig them up and see if the warmth of the hoophouse gets them going.  I have a lot of lettuces in plug trays in our other hoophouse that were waiting to be planted, but I think most of them waiting too long.  We’ll see.

Anyway, this made for a very good day.  In spite of the fact that I said I’d feed them lunch and the soup did not get warm on “Simmer Select low” chosen to keep it from scorching, and the bread was not done yet since I was busy in the field and didn’t start preheating the oven until after 11.  They were gracious about it and ate cool potato-leek soup.