As always at this time of year, rainfall brings with it the good and the bad. The good far outweighs the bad in many ways, the most obvious being that we are still in a time of drought and the less irrigating we have to do the better. It helps in other ways as well. Most of the fields that were in over-wintering cover crops have been mowed down and tilled and are, in a way, like large, shallow compost piles. The addition of moisture can greatly speed up residue breakdown. This is especially helpful at our Lewis Road site with its sandy soils which dry out quickly. Moist soils also produce less dust making for healthier conditions when we resume working up beds next week.
The chief bad associated with late rainfall is that ripe strawberries rot quickly with excess humidity. This can make managing the field a challenge and sometimes we are forced to pick berries a little less ripe than normal to get them off the plants before a rainfall.
Rain is forecast again this Thursday, but after that we are expecting warm temperatures in the extended. This should help to push along some of the new crops we have planted. Over the next weeks we will shift to more of a position of abundance when we are trying to fill the boxes each week. The conversation here will switch from, “do you think it’s OK to give them mustard greens again?” to “we have too many options, which should we choose?” The young crops that will be ready soon include beets, green onions, summer squash, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, basil, cilantro, fava beans and butter lettuces. The blueberry plants look great and are loaded with fruit that we should start picking by early May. And the strawberry crop is looking like one of the best ever for us—we’ll be able to put full and half flats on the web store soon.
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