It’s hard to believe it is almost June already. Not so much that the time has flown, which to an extent it has, but more that it is May 29th and we haven’t planted a single tomato in the field yet. The plants are ready. Have been for weeks. Really they are looking a little worse for the wear that they haven’t been planted yet. But then there is the weather. Wednesday and Thursday nights last week we had nighttime temperatures around freezing – Nathan saw frost on the grass Friday at 3AM when he was up to run sprinklers to keep the asparagus from freezing a fourth time this year. At least that looks like it worked and the asparagus is starting to come back strong after nearly two weeks of lacklustre performance. But field tomatoes will be late this year. Good thing we have lots of tomatoes in the greenhouse as well, and they should already be ready before asparagus is done. And this week’s forecast looks warm so we are thinking of finally planting those poor confined plants out in the field.
This week in CSA we have Carrots, Rutabagas, Asparagus, Arugula, Green Garlic, Swiss chard, and Oregano
On Monday we moved our second batch of chickens out to pasture and so far in spite of a few cold nights they are looking fantastic. So far we have them close enough to home to plug in heat lamps on the colder nights, but as they grow and the weather warms they hardly need it any more. And such as the cycle of chickens goes, we are getting another batch of chicks today. So the brooder is all cleaned and re bedded with wood shavings, and the heat has been on since Saturday night so it has time to stabilize before they arrive. Always something going on.
We got the parsnips seeded last week, so now we just have to keep them evenly moist for the next two weeks until they come up. And preferably in about a week and a half we will flame weed them to kill all the weeds that germinate faster than parsnips. No point giving the weeds a week head start on the crop right off the start.
So here’s a situation to figure. This weather has us run off our feet day and night trying to save everything from frost, and we are still behind on planting. But also because of the weather we haven’t been able to plant the tomatoes. So we have this fun situation where we are short on work for the crew because the jobs they should have been doing were delayed, and even the crops and the weeds are both slowed down so they are mostly caught up on weeding. So we simultaneously have too much work, and not enough work to keep the crew busy. We have been getting creative trying to catch up on whatever we can but it is just another reason we are glad that this week looks encouraging for tomato planting.
Since the season is getting on and our manure spreader refuses to cooperate with our efforts to repair it we have been looking for other options to spread wood chips for the squash field. Earlier in the year we were able to hire someone to spread the manure, but he is too busy to do the chips so we are on our own for that. We are however fortunate that Aleta’s parents were able to loan us a larger manure spreader and a tractor to pull it. So we are going like crazy trying to get the job done while we have the equipment. We are just glad it is getting done and we can still hopefully plant squash on time.
Well that’s the news for this week. One way or another we will be trying to run the one tractor a lot today since it is needed for both the transplant crew on the tomatoes and for loading the manure spreader. Im convinced that no matter how many tractors you have on a farm there will be days you need one more. And today would be one of those days.
Well that’s about everything for this week.
Until next week,
Happy ordering!
Nathan and Aleta Klassen