This week we are mowing down and incorporating the last few blocks of over-wintered cover crop that we still have standing. I’m always a little ambivalent about this because it officially marks the transition from the lush, green, and more quiet time of winter and early spring to the dry, dusty, and bustling time of late spring and summer. Most of these late blocks will be planted to winter squash and pumpkins.
Elsewhere on the farm, we’ve been busy planting successions of cauliflower, broccoli, romanesco, cabbage, fennel, beets, lettuces, and herbs. Most of the potato varieties that we planted several weeks ago have jumped up with this warm weather and are nearly ready for hilling, which we do using tractor mounted shovels to push soil up around the base of the plants.
In the short term, our first block of summer squash has lots of blossoms which means we will probably start picking as soon as next week. It also means that a new round of squash transplants will be going into the greenhouse soon for the next succession.
We also will start picking blueberries next week. Early in the week we tented the plants with bird netting just in time for the fruit to start ripening—luckily the birds aren’t interested in unripe fruit so we only have to put the netting up for a few months every year. For whatever reason, Misty is the earliest variety this year, closely followed by Jewel. Last year Southmoon was the earliest variety, and even though it is loaded with fruit, it will probably be the last to ripen this year, which is what we expected from it in the first place. It’s throwing our learning curve for a loop, but we’re happy as long as we have blueberries coming in!
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