Hustle and Bustle

The marathon continues with intermittent sprints. We've had pretty amazing weather the past week and a half which has allowed us to stay on schedule and accomplish most of the tasks that make up our to-do list. Last week we began the perpetual tomato pruning and trellising which will occupy a lot of our time over the next month or so. Each plant gets pruned to 1 or 2 leaders and each leader gets clipped to a wire that is supported by 7' t-posts (we have around 2000 tomato plants on the farm). We also transplanted successions of lettuce, dill, cilantro, zucchini, cucumbers, cantaloupe, basil, edamame, beans, sunflowers, and scallions. The dry weather enabled us to hoe and weed where needed and with the help of workshifts we finished cleaning up the onion patch. This week we'll continue the steady march of spreading plants around the farm by transplanting more lettuce, beans, and edamame as well as leeks and celeriac for fall harvest. Strawberry plants for a 2020 harvest will arrive in a couple of weeks so I'll be busy getting beds ready for those 7,000 plants. We're already preparing for fall crops of broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, etc etc by spreading compost and doing an initial chisel plow to incorporate the lush cover crops and compost into the soil. The robust organic matter needs some time to mellow and break down by the beneficial microbes and bacteria in the soil. After a rain event or two we'll mix the mixture around again to stimulate additional decomposition, wait for another rain event, then begin the process of making raised beds. All in all it's a 1-2 month long process to finalize beds for planting into.