Blue Sky Beauty

This is a scene we're particularly proud of right now. The kid and the dog we're proud of too, but I mean the waterway teeming with flowering clover(s). It's a beauty for us to gaze upon, but any time we can provide an abundance of nectar for our foraging insect friends, especially now with rampant declines of many insect species, we're happy to do so. I remember as a kid it was always dangerous to walk around barefoot when white clover was in bloom because there seemed to be bees everywhere. It's not the case anymore but we provide what we can for them.

Following another satisfyingly ample Friday rain event we rejoice in some quintessential late spring weather. To beckon Friday's circumspect rain cloud performance I turned the irrigation system on for a few hours. After water communicated with water, we were doused by a nice trailing storm cloud that dumped just what the farmer ordered. It doesn't happen often, but when it does we're appreciative and thankful for the exact right amount of rain, especially at the end of the normal Mon-Fri work week. And by right amount I mean enough to give plants a good drink but not enough to keep us out of the fields (in this case .7").

Last week was full of farming (planting, seeding, weeding, cultivating, harvesting, mowing, plowing, bed-shaping). Into the ground went the 4th and 1st plantings of beans and edamame, respectively. The 2nd zucchini and cucumber succession went in and was covered to keep the pesty/pesky striped cucumber beetle at vine's length. The 10th planting of lettuce, the 5th scallion, and the one and only eggplant and okra patch was planted. The eggplant was hooped and covered just like the zucchini and cucumbers to keep the nightshade flea beetle away while the plants are young and getting established. The acre of potatoes and the new raspberries were fertilized and tractor cultivated. Three successions of beets are almost finished being weeded while the onions were wrapped up. Beans, flowers, lettuces, and herbs were manually cultivated. Fields were mowed in preparation for upcoming fall crops like broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage that we will transplant in early July. Seeds of beans, edamame, lettuce, dill, and cilantro were sown. Crops were harvested, binned, and distributed.

Upcoming this week we have leeks, sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, lettuce, basil, dill, cilantro, beans, and edamame to plant; more crops to seed and harvest; prepare soil for summer planted crops including the 2021 strawberry patch that goes in at the end of June; and begin setting up the trellising systems for field, heirloom, and cherry tomatoes. See you around!

Zucchini blossoms on protected plants that were transplanted May 14th (we were hoping to get them in a week earlier but the late cold weather delayed planting). There are enough creatures flying around under here that pollination seems to be occurring just fine even though they're hooped and covered.