Holy moly… it’s already the end of July. AND… it RAINED!
This weekend brought cool overcast days and plenty of rain to our farm and the region.I lost count of how many times I said ‘oh my gosh, I love this weather’ since Friday morning. The rain was gentle, and lasted for hours on Thursday and Friday night. We haven’t had rain like this since 2017… which feels like ages ago.
It feels good to be locked out of the field and unable to weed for a few days. There’s mud on my boots, a grin on my face and I feel calm in a way I haven’t all season. Five days of cooler temps, cloud cover, bursts of rain, and a moment to slow down and catch up on sleep feels incredible.
I used the lack of field work and wet weather on Friday to catch up on our accounting/quickbooks file. This is definitely a task I grumble about during the season, but at the end of the day I love numbers and it feels really good to have this up to date and to have a better grasp of where we are financially at this point in the season. Farming is not all planting and harvests… we spend a lot of time on the computer with excel sheets, emails, running numbers, etc. We try to figure out all the details in the winter but… most of the time our plans change a lot on the fly, this year especially.
Trays of fall crops were seeded on Saturday morning, as red-winged black birds flew around, singing/chatting and hopefully snacking on grasshoppers. It sounded like one big Bird Party happening at the farm, I think they were enjoying the weather too. I love looking ahead and planning for the upcoming season. While we wait for tomatoes to ripen, it’s time seed and plant for harvests in October and November. I seeded trays of kale, chard, collards, lettuces and more to fill the high tunnel with fall/winter crops in early September. And I’m finalizing our outside seeding/planting schedule so once the soil dries back a little, we can seed fall beds of spinach, arugula, cilantro, etc.
GARLIC - Mike and our Farm Crew harvested the garlic last week! Garlic is a fun storage crop because it’s schedule is different. We plant garlic cloves in October and mulch the beds heavily with straw to keep the garlic cozy and the soil protected. The plants make an appearance early in the spring and then around mid-July they’re ready to be pulled. This year’s garlic is gorgeous, and sized up beautifully. It is now hanging in the barn curing as we speak.
I mentioned in last week’s CSA Newsletter that one of the best lessons farming has taught and continues to teach me is patience. I enjoy observing the various crops grown on our farm, as each season they mature and ripen at different times. Some years it makes sense if a crop is slower to ripen as the spring was cool but other years we wait, anxiously as the tomatoes take their sweet time to ripen while I cannot pinpoint why they seem behind. In all honesty, they’re right on time… and I just need to stop assuming I know when they will be ready. The tomatoes are coming and I think they’ll go bonkers once they start, but we’ll just keeping waiting, patiently for them to ripen. Maybe it’s time to start giving them sweet pep talks in the morning…
The many flavors of summer are near and we will soon have broccoli, beans, fennel, cabbage and zucchini to share. And, the tomatoes and peppers won’t be far behind.
Watching these beauties grow from seed, and waiting for them to ripen has made me appreciate them so much more than I did before I began farming. Spotting the first broccoli head or noticing when the zucchini has started to bloom makes my heart skip a beat and I squeal with excitement.
Who doesn’t love a double rainbow?! Growing up in Ridgway, we used to have plenty of rainbows (and rain) during July and August. I feel like we’ve been low on them the last couple years and was excited to see this one a couple weeks ago.
Rainbows feel so special and make us stop and soak in the beauty unfolding in the moment.
Grasshopper update - they’re still here in very high numbers but the clouds and rain have definitely slowed them down, at least for the time being. They act the craziest and do the most damage when it’s hot, so hopefully we continue to see afternoon clouds. We have leased additional water for the remainder of the irrigation season and are now able to irrigate the pasture next to our production field. We’re hoping this helps keep them ‘happy’ and out of the vegetable field. Time will tell.
The photo above is from late May when they were itty bitty, and we had just started to notice just how many grasshoppers were around. They’re definitely driving me a little bonkers and have caused stress at the farm this year, but Nature’s doing her thing. And, just look at how cool they are!
Potatoes! The potato field is lookin GREAT. We finished a second weeding on them over a week ago and they should be pretty set for the remainder of the season. We dug up a few plants last week to see how they were looking underground, and I was happy to see plenty of potatoes setting and starting to size up. I may have enjoyed the first breakfast potatoes of the season yesterday. Mmm… so delicious! We look forward to sharing these with you all soon and hopefully throughout the fall/winter months.
Alright… I need to go finish the first batch of pickles of the season and be ready to get after if with our crew in 30 minutes. Wish me luck!
Enjoy this beautiful day.