The unusually warm spring has produced favorable conditions for us to get our cover crops mowed down and lots of transplanting already done here at our home farmland. This is the first year we are not farming the land we used to lease around the Redman house, but with our 18 acres at Lewis Road and the similar size here at home we have plenty of good ground available. The mild weather has made the transition that much easier. Much of the home farm has rich clay soil that holds moisture, which is good for saving on irrigation water, but can make it difficult to get an early start in the spring during wet years. The Lewis Road piece has very sandy soil. It dries out much more quickly but nutrient and water management there can be trickier.
As we discussed last week in terms of attracting native bees, crop diversity is important on a small farm, and of course is vital to our CSA program. Diversity of soil type and microclimate is also very helpful when managing so many different crops. With the variations in conditions on the pieces we farm, we’re able to find the right spot for everything we want to grow — the blueberry patch (which requires well drained soil in which the pH can be adjusted through soil amendments like soil sulfur and redwood mulch), the apple and pear orchards (appropriate for slopes that would be subject to erosion if planted in annual crops), lettuces and strawberries (which like the cooler often foggy summer weather at the home farm), tomatoes, beans, and peppers (which like the warmer weather and protection of hoophouses at our Lewis Road farm), and so on.
The overwinter kale crop was so robust and vigorous, it produced some of the nicest kale I’ve ever seen, which we’ve been able to harvest week after week. With the warm weather the kale is bolting (going to flower), so this crop is near the end now. We’ll be sorry to see it go, and hopeful that the successive summer plantings can escape the dreaded Bagrada bug, which has been blissfully absent during the winter.
On the other hand, with the additional heat inside the hoop houses the tomatoes have really taken off and some varieties have already started to flower. This week we will start to prune off the lateral “suckers” and attach the central leaders to strings suspended from the ceiling using plastic clips. By growing tomatoes vertically like this, we can maximize the space in the hoop houses by spacing the plants much closer together than we otherwise would in the field. Given the smooth start they’ve had, we’re expecting an earlier than usual crop of tomatoes.
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