Projects, WP Migration

This is the year of mice, cucumber beetles, weeds, weeds and Phytophthora/fusarium!

Posted on by Farmer
Every farming season has it’s challenges, and this season our issues are mice, cucumber beetles, and phytophthora/fusarium. Even with all these problems we are still hopeful that we will harvest bountiful CSA shares mostly because we plant extra varieties of veggies for redundancy should we have crop failures.
On Monday this past week we spent laying down paper mulch between our beds of winter squash and melons in hopes of not having to weed these crops. This involves hauling tons (Literally, that is how many pounds of rocks the farm crew has carried!) which are used in securing the mulch to the ground should the winds pick up in our valley. This is only a time saving effort if the winds do not carry the paper mulch away so we will keep you posted as to whether this works for our current growing season. Our hope is that in the future we can grow straw mulch for keeping the weeds down between these crops.
Thursday the farm crew weeded a gazillion onions. SO THANK YOUR FARM CREW! It is not such a fun job because we are all anxious to know if these onions survive our weeding. Onions are so shallow rooted that they easily pull up with the weeds. This year our onions were overtaken by nutsedge (see earlier post) so we were unable to hoe them and resorted to hand pulling weeds from about 1/3 acre of onions. Normally the CSA gets the first harvest of all our crops while the farm crew waits until a crop is at “peak production”; however, the farm crew will deserve Carl’s French Onion Soup after our first onion harvest.
Paper mulch between rows of winter squash and melons. We just had a storm roll in, so in this photo you will notice that some of our paper mulch has blown away, which we will have to fix. Once winter squash/melons put out enough runners, their runners/foliage will hold down this paper mulch preventing the wind from carrying it away.
Paper mulch between rows of winter squash and melons. We just had a storm roll in, so in this photo you will notice that some of our paper mulch has blown away, which we will have to fix. Once winter squash/melons put out enough runners, their runners/foliage will hold down this paper mulch preventing the wind from carrying it away.
I took this photo looking out our trailer and as you can see Bluff Mountain is hidden in rain clouds. So far today it has rained 2 inches so say your prayers that our winter and summer squash can handle this amount of rain.
I took this photo looking out our trailer and as you can see Bluff Mountain is hidden in rain clouds. So far today it has rained 2 inches so say your prayers that our winter and summer squash can handle this amount of rain.
A good bit of our field pepper crop is dying from either phytophthora or fusarium, we aren’t sure which, and we have not grown peppers in this field for over 4 years and didn’t have this problem then.
A good bit of our field pepper crop is dying from either phytophthora or fusarium, we aren’t sure which, and we have not grown peppers in this field for over 4 years and didn’t have this problem then.
We are harvesting a few cucumbers and have been growing the “Diva” cucumber for about 6 years but the past 2 years this cucumber has given us major problems. Notice the dead cucumber plants in this photo. We are hoping to harvest enough cucumbers for our CSA but aren’t quite sure.
We are harvesting a few cucumbers and have been growing the “Diva” cucumber for about 6 years but the past 2 years this cucumber has given us major problems. Notice the dead cucumber plants in this photo. We are hoping to harvest enough cucumbers for our CSA but aren’t quite sure.
This past weekend was our first major basil harvest for market and we didn’t even sell it all so that means we will be freezing PESTO for our winter stash. YUM! Our market sales are a little down this year and not sure why.
This past weekend was our first major basil harvest for market and we didn’t even sell it all so that means we will be freezing PESTO for our winter stash. YUM! Our market sales are a little down this year and not sure why.
Greenhouse bell peppers who seem happy and healthy. We are thankful to have a backup greenhouse crop so that we can be sure our CSA is provided with sweet bell peppers.
Greenhouse bell peppers who seem happy and healthy. We are thankful to have a backup greenhouse crop so that we can be sure our CSA is provided with sweet bell peppers.
Another photo of greenhouse bell peppers that are happy and healthy.
Another photo of greenhouse bell peppers that are happy and healthy.
Farmer

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