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Market Plans in May

For May, we will be at Findlay Market, Saturdays from 8 – 2pm (unless in an act of charity we can leave early if we sell out). With a little luck and some sunlight, we’ll be back at Northside in time for the 18th move outside. If not, then hopefully the week after that.

It’s been a challenging Spring. Our high tunnel crops are doing well and transplanted crops are holding on, but anything seeded in the ground is being fiercely challenged by weeds right now. It’ll all come down to a race between the weeds growing up and the crop forming a canopy to shade weeds out. On the farm inspection today, I did notice that some of our garlic is beginning to rot in the field- just too wet for some varieties (probably means we’ll have to get serious about raised beds and early straw for all garlic this Fall).

Pictures to come of field conditions, latest big bowl of strawberries and the finished cooler, which in yesterdays testing worked flawlessly- cold and tight- no major air leaks!

Northside Farmers Market Inspection

Will Lambeth, market manager of NFM, came out to the farm this morning (after a 20mile bike ride in the rain!) for our official NFM farm inspection. He is going to travel to every farm selling at NFM this year at least once, maybe twice, as NFM shifts to a strictly grow what you sell market. I think it’s great and he did a thorough review of both field, greenhouses, seeds on hand, seed invoices, equipment, etc. Growers/Vendors will be allowed to sell a small handful of items from neighbors, this year, but they will have to be labeled. While nothing is 100% if someone really insists on breaking the rules, this is one of the best ways to confirm producers are doing what they say they are. If you have any questions about any of the farm products that you see for sale, take the time to talk to the grower. But if those questions persist, Will is there to help get answers.

Strawberry

I had my first ever home grown strawberry this afternoon! The taste was excellent and as fleeting as the sunny day we had (two hours later its pouring down rain…again). It was a Chandler strawberry from about a 100 plants our local extension agent gave to me last Fall.

I’ll also call attention to the date: April 28, 2011, which I think is pretty good for Northern KY. I’m thinking of going whole hog on some high tunnel berries for next year. Not only are they early, the risk of a failure due to frost or rotting berries due to the rain is severely reduced. Of course, it’s expensive real estate, but not crazy expensive. Pollination is the only real question and I won’t have a final answer on that for a few weeks. With a little planning we’re talking home grown berries for Mother’s Day- Sweet!

Tomatoes

Got the first tomatoes of the season in the ground yesterday- high tunnel ground that is. We’re ahead of last year, but should have taken more risk this year and gotten them in a little earlier. Put in Glacier, Scotia & Early Girl. More to come as room is created.

The challenge as we try many different things to see what works is that premium space in the high tunnels is tight. Premium space is defined as the middle, warmest area. We have plenty of edge room, but I think I’m going to save that for some Spring/Summer stuff that could use/tolerate the heat. As soon as we’re picked out of something or it’s bolted (an effect of the heat wave we had a few weeks ago), out it goes; but usually a week or so behind schedule (as far as the transplants are concerned).

I’ve also noticed that there is definitely a point in time when Ag-30 row cover is too much for the high tunnels, if you can believe that. We’re going to have to have a seasonal switch out where we go to a lighter row cover to keep things from getting too hot.

Batten Down

About 9pm last night I checked on the high tunnels, closed the one with strawberries, just in case we had a freak cold snap. And left the rest, including the blown off row covers. There was absolutely no wind.

About 2 or 3am that all changed and the rest of the night was lying awake listening the wind howl-thinking about kites, thinking through the design of the high tunnels, where the strengths and weaknesses are and generally not sleeping. No matter how many years you have high tunnels, hoop houses, etc. there are always a few moments like this.

Now it’s off to batten things down. Fill more sandbags to weigh down the row covers and close all the high tunnels up to keep some of the wind out. It’s always a debate- do you close them up (current consensus on the high tunnel listserv) or open them all the way to let the wind blow through (with the Hanley design, this is much more feasible since the sides slide up). Of course, high tunnel disasters always make for good photo blog write ups- haha.

Update: everything held on tight through another “storm of the century”. I’ll note to hanley hoop house readers that you should go with 22-24in rebar to stake out the hoops, especially in plowed ground. I’ve had several instances of the 18in-ers working loose, coming out, etc. The good news is that the “system” as a whole works and is able to compensate for one or two flakey hoops.

Fav Weather Blog

One of the things I spend a lot of time on is the weather (especially last Summer, looking for any drop of rain). During this phase of the farm (early days), we’re spending a lot of effort pushing the envelope- seeing how late & how early we can grow things productively in our portion of the Ohio River Valley. Weather and more specifically climate play a major role. And trends are even more important (for example, I wanted to put tomatoes out about 2 weeks ago, but the trends weren’t looking good and this morning with the temps at 23degrees F!, I’m glad I waited).

The day to day forecast is nice, the 10 day is always good for a laugh. But the big question is usually “why?” is one weather pattern or another occurring. The weather blog at the Farmer’s Almanac web site goes a long way toward discussing these patterns. Evelyn Browning Garriss writes it in ordinary language with good illustrations. I recommend it highly.

CFPE update

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Just some updates on the walkin/cooler progress. The insulation installation/nail pounding is a little more sparse as the crops demand more attention; like most things on the farm, we’ll probably have one big push to finish it about a day before we desperately need it. There’s also a picture of what the barn looks like in there…

The high tunnel greens are looking good- the high temps last week pushed them a little harder than I would have preferred, schedule wise. Outside, it’s cold at night, but it has been sunny and dry during the day, so I’ll be able to slip in some seeding outside, covered with floating row cover (FRC, if you want to get fancy) this last week of March.

Coke & the Civic Gardens Add Life

Thanks to Peter at the Civic Garden in Cinci and our local Coca-Cola bottling plant, we picked up a couple of 250gallon tanks for free a few weeks ago. They use them to haul coke syrup (for more on that go the This American Life where they have a show on what’s in the formula) one time and then give them away. After a thorough wash-out, we’ve now increased our water storage, hauling and application capacity by about a zillion times. August isn’t looking quite as threatening now…

No stinkin’ Cold Snap for us

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Just some pictures taken during the cold snap this week (although we missed the promised 25degrees last night by about 5 degrees). In the high tunnels, the strawberries we received from UK-Extension have started to flower. It’s the first time I’ve grown strawberries, so I’m not sure whether I should be picking off these flowers in order to let the plants size up. I’ll probably let them ride to see what happens- in any case, they’re a lot earlier than if they were outside.

We also have full racks of seedlings under the lights in the basement. Stuff is always a little more leggy growing this way, but after a few weeks we throw them out to our tiny greenhouse and they really take off. Waiting in the wings are a bunch of tomatoes destined for the high tunnels when we get just a bit of moderate weather.