Fork & Knife

Frost

We received a light frost on Saturday morning when the temperature dropped below 40 degrees. Seems to have burned the winter squash down to the lower leaves. Struggling tomatoes seem to have survived. Okra is fine. Autumn greens were not touched. Now if it would rain, we could really get going for fall crops.

Frost

After pausing to watch the baseball playoff games Friday night, I returned to my field of dreams after midnight to finsh picking for market. I cut flowers for an hour or so and it was cold. I then pulled radishes and was headed to bed when I decided to put the flowers in the cab of the truck because it felt frosty. Saturday morning I went to walk the dogs and the ground was hoary white. I thought it a fitting end to a arduous garden year, but I admit to being saddened. The thermometer on the screened in front porch read 33 degrees and it certainly looked like the end of all frost sensitive crops.

I went to market and had a better day than I expected with flowers, radishes, a few pumpkins and winter squash. I returned to find some things (nearly anything in the cucurbit clan) pretty much burned down, but other things (zinnias & green beans) only seared lightly. I was pretty surprised given the temperature but the fog that was rolling in as I cut flowers must have insulated the earth just enough. We are certainly transitioning to full on autumn; you can smell it in the air, feel it in the dirt, sense the lessening of the sun's fire and wade through moist fog on morning walks.

Cook your beets

I have had a member's friend have a serious reaction to the beets eaten raw. Beets contain oxalic acid and some people have a reaction of burning in the mouth and feeling like their throats are closing up. Please cook your beets. I am not sure if it was the drought, her particular sudden body's reaction, or some other factor. For more beet info go here:

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=49
http://allallergy.net/fapaidfind.cfm?cdeoc=1485

There are beet recipes in the recipes section of this blog. Do not use the raw beet recipe with these beets.

What's all this weird stuff falling out of the sky?

Beautiful, beating sunny days in the upper 90's leads to pop-up clouds. All this useless beauty (to steal from Elvis Costello) as these clouds carry water over and further east. Lightning in the sky at night. One begins to want to curse the sky, the one thing that can bless and relieve your suffering in the midst of a drought. 

Well, it seems the back of the drought might finally have been broken. Friday morning it rained for about 28.5 seconds and I thought, "Oh goddess, not again." Around 5:00 we were headed into town and it was raining on the cherry tree as we got in the car. We came home about an hour later and it was not raining. The gauge showed .125 inches of rain and I said, "Oh goddess, not again!" Then around 10 p.m. I was picking peppers with my headlamp on, as usual, and it started to rain. I kept picking expecting it to stop and needing to have something to sell at market. It rained harder and I finally started slogging toward the house carrying buckets of Gypsy, Jalepeno and Habanero peppers along with Sungold, Whippersnapper and Yellow Plum tomatoes. It poured for awhile and then rained steadily overnight. Before I went to market the gauge showed 2.1 inches of rain. OH MY GOD! It rained some while I was at market, but not much at all here at the farm.

I went out in the late afternoon to cut some weeds from about a half acre of ground poorly plowed this year (I had a hell of a time finding anyone to plow for me this spring). I want to plant a cover crop of clover or buckwheat, or both, or buckwheat then clover. As I mowed the clouds started piling up and swirling and I began to watch the sky carefully; it had that tornadic cast to it. I finally had seen enough and began to hightail it back toward the house. The clouds were going in about four directions at once and as I got close to the house, the wind suddenly blew so fiercely that it nearly blew me off the mower and all the dead leaves from the drought and live leaves and even limbs began blowing out of the trees around the house. I got the mower under cover and sprinted toward the house as the skies opened up and the sky went electric. It rained about an inch. Still no puddling or runoff.

Sunday it was cool and misty and we probably got between .2-.5 inches of rain.

We are only two weeks from September. We may be mostly done with the big heat, but early September can be hot too. Next time it dries out I start planting tons of cool season crops and in the mean time, I will be planting stuff in flats.

Drought

Well I have not written about the drought yet, so here goes. The sky just won't give it up this year. So far in August we have had 1/2" of rain. July gave us a grand total of 1/2" of rain. June came in at 3" of rain. May only provided one and a half inches of rain. April was dry also; I have a little less than an inch on the calendar, but I'm not sure the gauge was out for the whole month. So that is five and a half inches of rain; normally, we would have much more than that in just one of those months.  The crazy thing is that October through March was insanely wet, standing water everywhere. Missouri is such a study in contrast; extreme changes season to season, day to day, and even hour to hour. Some days it's minute to minute or even second to second.

This has been the worst drought since the 1980's. It has started much earlier than the usual July-August dry spell we get every couple of years. To add insult to injury, after six weeks with no rain, temperatures have been in the high 90's and we had six or so consecutive days over 100 degrees.

I feel lucky to be providing food for my thirty subscribers, but incredibly guilty that I have not been able to provide more quantity and variety. So far, I have been providing about ten items a week, but they have not been changing out as much as I would like. The quantities have been lower than they should too.

The water company actually called us because they thought we had a leak in our line. Our water bill went up 400% in July. This year has made me get serious about the need for a simple and highly efficient watering system going forward. I have been using soaker hose and, gasp, sprinklers. I have planned to use Queen Gil drip irrigation hose since before it was available in the U.S.; now I will make the call and choose. I am currently leaning toward soaker hose, but will be doing a lot of research and investing over the winter.

I also am considering building a pond or two on the farm. I will have to price it out and decide if I can afford to spend the money or if I can afford to not spend the money.

Fall is looking better. I have a lot of stuff planted and up after applying copious amounts of water. As ground comes clear from summer crops I am either replanting summer crops or planting fall crops. Eventually it will start raining again.

Winter Greens

Seems the weather has folks thinking of the winter greens. Big piece in the Washington Post about an organic farmer in Maryland who harvest and delivers to wholesale customers and also has winter subscriptions for individuals. I have been considering it, but have not done it yet. A winter subscription could include garlic, kales, collards, mustards, turnips, mesclun mix, spinach, mache, other greens, potatoes, sprouts, forced flowers, sweet potatoes, winter squash, pumpkins, and other stuff. I would love to hear if there is interest in this idea.

My goal is to provide food and other products year round to keep you happy and full and to provide income from the farm twelve months of the year. We are still eating turnips and greens from the field with only Remay cover cloth, so I know it is possible. I can only imagine what is possible with coldframes, greenhouses and proper heated and cooled storage space.

Up and coming

The Purple Hull Peas and Okra planted on July 22nd are just beginning to put on pods and should be ready in the next week or two; same for the second run of cucumbers. The second run of squash is already producing as of two weeks ago.

All the stuff planted on September 6 is up and growing well. We should have some of the D'Avignon French Breakfast Radishes for next week's delivery.

I will also continue to fold in the different winter squashes and pumpkins as they reach maturity.

We should also get some fall apples.

Recently received, planted, and harvested

Received a couple of seed orders this week including Purple Hull Pink-eyed Peas, radishes, daikons, turnips, rutabaga, okra, spinach, mustards, green beans, cucumbers, lots of greens, peas, beets, chard, and melons. The window is closing, or closed, on pumpkins, winter squash, melons, okra, and cowpeas. I have planted quite a bit of pumpkins, winter squash, and melons in the last few weeks. I will, hopefully, plant the okra and Purple Hull Pink-eyed Peas today. I will also be planting another run of green beans, cucumbers, summer squash, beets, and chard this week. Turnips will get planted again in August. September should begin the mad rush of fall plantings of favorites such as lettuce, peas, spinach, greens, and radishes.

We have about one more digging of potatoes left for the season. I think we will have dug almost 800 pounds of potatoes, or more. Cucumbers and squash are beginning to really take off and the Maxibel French Haricot Verts should be ready this weekend. The corn plantings are looking good and should provide us with several weeks of corn-on-the-cob and then a fairly big gap and, hopefully, another run of corn near the end of August. All we need is rain, to paraphrase the Beatles.

We may experience a gap in the cut flowers as many of the perennials are nearly done for the season and our annuals are just about to start (zinnias and sunflowers), but I made a big planting of zinnias, sunflowers, cosmos, Mexican sunflowers, amaranth, celosia, poppy, California poppy, and bachelor buttons about a week ago.

Busy as a bee

Our next door neighbors, Rob & Betty Ghio, at Rocky Fork Farms have agreed to house a hive of bees for one of our local honey producers. This is good news for us as it will increase the cucurbit and other plant's percentages of fertilization of flowers; in simple terms, more fruits and vegetables per plant.

The honey bees are often still sleeping when many of the fruit trees are flowering. I will try to get some Orchard Mason Bees to aid in fruit production and because I think they are really cool.

Plowing the field, success

On Sunday we finally achieved a plowed field. The grand total was 1.31 acres plowed in four strips. Hopefully we will achieve disking and behind the tractor tilling today. This is a lot of land to take care of growing vegetables, but I have high hopes and a lot of demands from hungry subscribers and customers at the Columbia Farmers' Market. The soil looks, smells, and even tastes good. I couldn't help myself; this little piece of earth belongs to me and I to it.