Farm Notes

This week’s imminent rains are very welcome indeed. The timing of the first system, late Wednesday morning, should allow us just enough time to get the harvest done for our Thursday deliveries. Things greened up remarkably quickly after the last rounds of rainfall, the bell beans and peas in the cover crops are in bloom, and all is starting to feel right with the world again.

We’ve been busy since last week trying to take advantage of what may be the last dry stretch for a while. Yesterday we planted our first block of potatoes. This was a mix of Desiree and Carola sort-outs from last year that we held over in our cooler, and La Ratte fingerlings—something that we haven’t grown for several years. Last week we transplanted out new successions of Broccoli, Cauliflower, Fennel, and Lettuces. We’ve also been cultivating previous plantings, mowing and discing in old plantings, and cutting drainage channels in anticipation of the rains to come.

All in all, we are off to one of our best starts ever. Despite early fears about salt build up in the strawberries because of the lack of rainfall, the plants look good and are on track to start fruiting by early April. Last week we put out 80,000 persimalis mites to build up their populations in advance and help keep the pest two-spotted mites, whom they feed off of, in check. We also injected a beneficial microbial inoculant, which can help to keep soil borne diseases like verticilium and phytophthora at bay, in through our drip lines. Strawberries are subject to many pest and disease problems, which is why conventional berries are among the most highly treated crops with pesticides, fumigants, and fungicides. Our methods above, in conjunction with a very long field rotation to assure that soil borne diseases die off before the next planting of strawberries in a field, help keep our strawberry plants healthy through the season. The yields will never be as high as what the conventional growers can get using chemicals, but we think the better flavor and safety of our berries is certainly worth the trade-off.

This year we are trialing a strawberry variety that is new to us—Sweet Ann. It was developed by an independent breeder and is said to be a good fit for organic growers because of its vigor and good flavor. The majority of our crop is still the Albion variety, our favorite of the past few years. We have almost an acre more strawberries than last year, so we’re looking forward to a strong showing from the strawberries, which underperformed a bit in 2013.

Here at our home farm, the blueberries overwintered well – we’ll be pruning them soon and looking for the first harvest in late spring. Other goodies on tap for the spring include spring onions, green garlic, fava beans, spinach, chantenay carrots, salad mix, radishes, turnips, mei quin choi, arugula, celery, beets, red cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, fennel, leeks, parsley, kale, chard, and lettuces. As usual, we’ll probably pull in a few special items from our friends at Coke Farm, Far West Fungi, and Marsalisi Farm in the early spring boxes.

Remember this is the final week of winter deliveries. The first Spring Deliveries are on March 19th and 20th.