Week 19 August 13-17

Harvest

Not much to harvest this week. We are finishing up the summer crops and the fall crops are a bit behind. Timing is everything in this field (well, all 9 of them).

Okra (still going strong), Eggplant, Peppers, Cucumbers, Turnips, Tomatoes (not too many though), Tobacco (experimental), Peas, and Green Beans.

Here is a little sneak peak at October's harvest:

Orange Bulldog Pumpkins

Production and Distribution

We harvested more tobacco this week and hung it out to dry. Here is the what the leaves that we harvested 2 weeks ago look like now.

Okra is still coming in faster than we can get it out. Destiny Organics,  a local distributor, bought 10 cases from us early in the week and the rest went to market. We also put together an order for Farmer's Fresh. 

Maintenance

Hoop House one has been being solarized for the last month. It's best to let it cook for 6-8 weeks but impatience got the better of Cory and we took the plastic off. We laid out the beds, 50" beds with 20" walkways, and prepped the soil for planting. The goal was not to disturb the top layer too much because that is where all of the heat penetrated which means there could still be live weed seed below.

A line in the clay

Planting

This week we started Squash, Zicchini and Cucumbers in the greenhouse, direct seeded carrots and turnips in the hoop house and did whole lot of transplanting. All of the seeds we started for fall are ready to hit the fields. 

Strawberries transplanted

Direct seeded carrots

Hoop House 1 is full again with spinach, carrots and turnips

The white fabric is a row cover we are using to help keep the soil cool while these seeds germinate. The black lines on top are the irrigation drip tape.

Van full of transplants

Truck full of transplants

Thursday and Friday we spent several hours on the transplanter setting out all manner of Broccoli, Broccoli Raabe, Kale, Collars, Kohlrabi, and Choy.

Farm Life

It was a long week. We had two 12 hour days and two days over 12 hours. It's still hot but every once in a while you'll feel a breeze that reminds you fall is coming and gives you a little bit of strength to get through the rest of August. I made lunch Friday for the crew; cornbread, turnip greens with spinach and peppers, french style turnips with butter, sugar and white wine, cucumber salad and roasted eggplant. I'll post the cornbread recipe because it was delicious. 

This lil guy hangs out at the barn

Puddy Time

Puddy helps weed the endive

Puddy came to work with us one day this week too. 10 points if you can find her in one of the earlier pics from this entry. Post it in the comments if you do. :)