It’s a beautiful time of year here on the farm with the apple trees in bloom, most of the fields planted into young crops, the surrounding hills still green from winter rains, and occasional sunny warm days. We’ve been extra busy this spring so we put off our Spring Farm Tour, but there will be even more to show you and talk about when we do our tour Saturday, May 4th 
(see details below). The last couple years we’ve done the spring tour at our new Lewis Road ranch, but this year we’ll show off our home farm again. This is the site of our apple and pear orchards, blueberry patch, and various field crops, as well as our habitat restoration area, goats, hedgerows, riparian corridor, and a field trial we’re doing with UCSC researchers on cover crop rotations for strawberry plantings. Lots to show you and it looks different than it does in the fall for our huge Harvest Fair event.This week Steve and the crew have been mulching the blueberries, which have set their first fruit already. The mulch keeps the weeds d
own, helps the field retain moisture, thus saving water, and helps to moderate pH, as blueberries prefer a slightly acidic soil. Since humans aren’t the only creatures to love berries, it’s also time for us to net the bushes again or we’ll lose most of our crop to birds. Last year we netted each row individually, but we had to pull up the edges all along both sides of each row every time we harvested and the birds inevitably found their way inside from places along the edge that 
were not secured tightly enough to the ground. (One of the kids’ summer tasks was to have one run along the rows and chase the birds to the end where her sister would open the net and allow them to escape.) This year we’ll try netting the whole field under one net as they do at the UCSC Farm and Garden. This should make the harvesting much easier. We’ll see how it works out.
The strawberries are not in full production yet, so be patient while we rotate them through. Soon we’ll be having berries for all boxes on a weekly basis. We have planted more than last year, so we expect to have plenty for webstore orders and u-picks as well.
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