What
a heat wave today! After a month of
below-normal temperatures and lots of clouds, I think I actually heard the
plants growing today. Heat does wonders
for plants as long as they have enough water.
The asparagus spears that were growing about 2-3” per day in the cool
weather today grew a foot. What a
difference.
Although
I was contemplating delaying our first traditional CSA share delivery due to
the cool spring, I think this Saturday, 5/24, will be a great time to share our
first big harvest. The greens that have
been growing in the hoop house are at their peak, with good size, color, and
flavor. Perennials and overwintered
vegetables like rhubarb, asparagus and spinach have some size, and a few herbs
like parsley and chives are a healthy green.
It
will be a few weeks before we have enough volume of produce to come down to the
farmers market. But, only a few short
weeks!
When
the weather has allowed it, we have been scurrying to get transplants in the
ground. The onions seemed to take us
about two weeks to get in this year, partly because there are a lot of them
(more than 20,000, I think) but mostly because it kept raining and it was too
wet to till and plant. Now that the
night temp’s are at or above 50 degrees, we’ll put the tomato plants out,
followed by the eggplant and sweet potatoes.
The okra and peppers will wait until June, when the temperature rarely
falls below 55 degrees (in theory). Each
to their own season, right? At this
point, I can report that the crops that are in the ground are looking great,
and we are almost on schedule with the next round of planting/transplanting.
Erik Sessions and Sara Peterson
Patchwork
Green Farmers
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