At Least the Frogs are Happy

Whew. Here's hoping for some calm and dry weather. Last week's storms sure were crazy, exciting, and a bit scary. I hope you and your loved ones (and your property/possessions) made it through the storms okay. Damage to the farm could have been worse and I was expecting it to be so while watching the rain and wind pummel everything outside our windows. 'Only' 2.5 inches fell from the worst of the storms, providing the farm with enough rain to give the month of May the accolade of "second wettest May in 11 seasons". A total of 8.5" came down, 3/4" less than last May. So far I still feel lucky because that was our first deleterious rainstorm of this season. At this point last year we probably had a dozen or so. That storm was our first real test since the installation last fall of waterways and diversions to better direct the flow of water. We had some erosion but it would have been worse without those. We'll hopefully continue to make improvements to the farm's stormwater management as it appears these types of weather events are becoming more common. We must remain resilient, like Anchor Run's frog population, which was 'singing up a storm' during the storm.

Even though we battled the weather last week we were able to accomplish most of the tasks that were on our to-do list. Three thousand sweet potato 'slips' were planted as well as successions of lettuce, cantaloupe, basil, beans, and edamame. Ground was prepped for future plantings of strawberries, summer squash, cucumbers, beans, edamame, celeriac, leeks, and carrots. The onion patch was finally uncovered (ie row cover removed) after the spring threat of the pesky allium leafminer has passed. The onions have been covered since they were planted in mid-April. They've grown a lot, but so too have the weeds, and now those desperately need to be pulled out. So please join us for a workshift! We also finished harvesting the hakurei turnips and spent a lot of time harvesting strawberries for members. Additionally we moved the high tunnel off the lettuce mix to protect the heirloom tomatoes for the summer.