Into Summer

There are times when we're extra appreciative of our fields' aspects, situations, soil types, organic matter, etc. It's mostly when we go through extended dry spells, like we're in at the farm right now, because our soils do not require a lot of precipitation to remain productive (face north, high clay content, decent amount of organic matter). Yesterday there were storms all around us and we watched the dark clouds and yellow and red radar spots go right on by. It appears there's a chance of rain daily for the foreseeable future but I figure the just-right rain event is waiting until I've spent significant time adding irrigation to new locations. Fortunately I already installed tubing for the high value long season fabric covered crops such as peppers, tomatoes, melons, squashes, cucumbers, onions, and leeks but all of the bare ground short season crops currently wait for Mother Nature to provide. We received 2/10 of an inch of rain 10 days ago and now we try to patiently wait for more. I did just read that parts of southern Jersey received 3-5" of rain within the past couple of days which is way more than we need here. Plus that's of the disastrous heavy type which we can always do without.

Ignoring the weather for a minute, the farm is in pretty good shape at the moment. The dry weather allows us to move swiftly through our to-do list. Last week we planted the last of the 4 melons; another succession of lettuce, edamame, beans, basil, cilantro, and dill; and the second round of tomatoes. These tomatoes went into the hoop tunnel where the first round of sugar snap peas resided. It was flipped and planted in record time. Inside the various tunnels are some of the places around the farm where we practice intensive cultivation (multiple plantings in the same piece of ground in the same year; we have enough outdoor field space that we can only grow one crop in each spot per year and let the soil rest a bit longer). Raised beds were prepared and finalized for the 7,000 dormant strawberry plants we'll be receiving next week that we'll harvest in 2021 (we treat strawberries as annuals, planting a new patch each season as a way to stay ahead of pests and diseases). Tomatoes were pruned and clipped to the trellis system. Landscape fabric was installed in the aisles of the final planting of zucchini and cucumbers. Seeds were sown and fall celery was potted-up. Onions were weeded a second and final time (now that we're past the solstice most of their time and energy will be spent forming bulbs, or so I've heard). The entire farm was flail mowed. Four thousand feet of preliminary beds were formed for fall cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and rutabaga. Three thousand feet of sweet potato and eight thousand feet of potato beds were hilled and cultivated.

This coming week we'll embark on more crop maintenance and a lot of aisle mowing. More time will be devoted to harvesting now that zucchini and cucumbers are starting. These need to be picked every two days (and as of now the plants are the biggest I've ever seen and hopefully this translates into an exceptional harvest). Weeds will be pulled and crops will be stirrup-hoed. More lettuce and beans will go in. And just maybe we'll spend a lot of time irrigating.