Tomatoes, freshly pruned and trellised!
Summer Solstice is today folks! We were having a conversation in the field yesterday around anxiety about Summer flying by too fast. Summer here is incredible, short and always zips by, so lets remind each other to try to slow down and savor every moment of the next few months. Deal? Ok!
Wild week here. We frosted at the farm on both Tuesday and Wednesday morning and then by Saturday we were sweating in the high 80s. Wow, Spring has been an interesting one this year and has kept us guessing! We had a few things get burned with the frost last week but on the whole everything pulled through just fine. My Mom and little brother were in town visiting on Monday and thankfully helped me repair a broken sidewall on the greenhouse (I went to close up in the evening and it wouldn't roll up, eek!) and pull all the row cover out of storage so we could hoop and cover the tomatoes. I'm so happy we did, because I woke up on Tuesday morning early to temps in the low 30s and we had to wait to harvest for a couple hours because the greens were frozen and needed to thaw out. Oh my!
Ooooo Collards!
Mike helped me set up the tomato trellis in the high tunnel and the first moveable tunnel and I spent Sunday pruning and trellising tomatoes, which felt amazing! I have been walking past the tomatoes for a week now, anxious to get them trellised so having this task complete is very satisfying. Ok tomatoes, do your thang! Some have set fruit and they're all blooming like crazy. I'm hoping we'll be able to start harvesting tomatoes in late July...
Potatoes, weeded and ready for water
We are tackling weeds around here, one section at a time. The potatoes are weeded and should be ready for a hilling next week. We worked our way through most of the cabbage beds yesterday afternoon, 8 left to go! And once the cabbages are finished we'll move into the roots later this week. Oh the root block... you're constantly on my mind and need to be weeded ASAP. If not... the weeds can and will get big fast and turn this project into an obnoxious task that will take 10 time as long.
Onions shining in the early morning light
Mike shaped the remaining beds in the field in preparation for seeding the second round of carrots and beets. I think we're going to wait for these high temps to pass and plan to seed on Sunday or Monday, when we're back in the low 80s.
We transplanted a third succession of broccoli and cauliflower yesterday morning and a hopeful round of peppers outside after lunch. Padrons, jalapenos, poblanos, hot wax and some extra sweets red bells. Here's to hoping we have a long and warm season! The outside peppers did great last season but they went in the ground two weeks earlier as the temperatures were more inviting of hot crops last Spring. So... we'll see what happens!
All the beans, zucchini and winter squash are up! They made it through the frost unscathed, whew! We made a last minute seed order of these crops incase we lost them during those cold mornings and hard to reseed, but thankfully everything looks good. Grow lovelies, grow!
Zucchini with mycorrhizal sheath! Mike was pretty excited when we dug this up on Saturday. These guys were seeded on 6/4 and just got their second watering last night.
Mountain Roots Produce CSA Members: This Wednesday, June 21st, marks the third CSA Harvest and pickup for the 2017 Season! Telluride CSA pickup will be held every Wednesday from 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. in Spruce Park (right next to The Butcher and The Baker). Your CSA Shares will be packed in harvest crates, please remember to bring bags with you to collect your bounty as we need to bring the harvest crates back to the farm for packing up the following week.
Check your email for this week's CSA Newsletter with additional CSA Pickup details, Recipes, etc.
CSA Harvest - Week #2
CSA Harvest - Week #3: Salad Greens, Head Lettuce, Baby Kale, Arugula, Garlic Scapes, Snow Peas, Carrots, Hakurei Turnips, and Herbs.