June 6, 2021
Dry to Wet, Cold to Hot
by Farmer Derek

What can I say? A month's worth of rain in a week following the driest 3-week stretch in May I can remember, along with record heat and record cold. It keeps us on our toes, I guess. But it could be worse. Overall crops are thriving and healthy and farmers are in good spirits.

Now that we're into June we're slowly transitioning from lots and lots of planting to additional maintenance (weeding, mowing, trellising, etc) and extra harvesting. Three thousand sweet potato slips go in the ground this coming week - if it's dry enough to get into the fields - which basically wraps up our large spring plantings. In the past couple of weeks leeks, cantaloupe, winter squash, watermelon, zucchini, cucumbers, eggplant, and okra were transplanted along with the weekly and biweekly successions of scallions, cilantro, dill, basil, and lettuce. Ample rain plus heat means crops and weeds will grow like mad. Driving lanes and some crop aisles desperately need to be mowed. Trellis infrastructure has been installed and initial pruning and clipping was done to both field and tunnel tomatoes. They seem to add a foot of growth per week. Eight thousand feet of potatoes were cultivated and hilled a week ago and will need another round before they get too tall. Hilling provides more room for the potato tubers to grow and will hopefully increase yield.

I hope you've been enjoying the early season shares!