June Farm Update—Welcome to Summer!

Gorgeous Potato Field under blue skies, HVF 2020

Here we are, just past the halfway mark in the month of June.  The first day of summer is approaching at the end of this week on Saturday, June 20.  So, as we do an official transition from spring into summer we thought it fitting to do a farm update so you know what’s happening in our valley!  This Sunday, June 21, is also the day we were scheduled to host our annual Strawberry Day event.  When the pandemic infiltrated our world back in March we hoped for a quick resolution and return to “normal,” however we quickly realized we had to be realistic that this wasn’t going to end as quickly as we hoped it may.  So, as the pandemic continues to persist we are cancelling Strawberry Day for the first time in HVF history!  While we’re still doing our best to minimize contact with the outside world, continue to wear masks and practice social distancing, continue daily cleaning and sanitizing, etc, we also continue to farm and do what we know how to do best—grow vegetables.  So while we can’t invite you to join us on a wagon tour to experience our fields and valley views for yourself, we’ll do our best to take you on a virtual tour through this week’s article, complete with pictures Andrea and Richard have been taking over the past few weeks!  So, get comfy and claim your seat on our virtual wagon as we take you through the fields and update you on farm happenings!

May 2020:  HVF CSA Box # 3

As we write this article we’re preparing to pack our 7^th CSA box of the 2020 season and this week we’re welcoming our Peak Season Vegetable share members.  While our early season boxes were filled with a wide variety of greens, radishes, ramps and asparagus, we’re just starting to see the transition from spring crops to summer crops.  We started picking strawberries last week and while they taste quite delicious, we have to be honest with you that we are not going to see prolific yields as we have in previous years.  When we pulled the field cover back early this spring, and loosened the straw mulch, we found that some of the plants had not survived the winter.  What exactly was the cause?  It’s hard to say, but likely a combination of a warm March followed by a cold April.  This is our first year to harvest from this planting.  While it’s a bit disappointing, we’re hopeful that the plants will shoot out runners to help fill in the gaps.  If we manage the field correctly after we’re done picking this year, we may be able to establish more plants for next year’s’ harvests.  So, while we will still have strawberries, there won’t be as many as in past years.  Now that we have that bit of news out of the way, lets move on to some other fields!

Look closely and you'll see the cutest little Green Zucchini!

By the end of this week we’re hoping to start picking the first zucchini and in just one more week we’ll add cucumbers to the harvest list!  We had a field cover on these plants after we transplanted them back in May, with hopes that a little extra heat gain would encourage their growth.  We didn’t intend to take the cover off, but Mother Nature had a different idea when she sent high winds our way a few weeks ago!  So, we let her do her thing and once the cover was off we were pleased to see nice, healthy plants!  Right next to these crops we planted our first planting of melons and watermelons.  The plants are still small, but they look very healthy.  Manuel Morales and Jose Antonio have been working hard irrigating many crops.  Crops such as zucchini and melons are planted on beds covered with plastic mulch and have drip lines running underneath the plastic to deliver not only water but also nutrients and beneficial microbes to support the plant’s growth and fruit development.  Before the melon vines grow too much and extend into the wheel tracks in between the beds, we are trying to maximize every effort to control the weeds that seize every opportunity to grow in open spaces. 

Jamie & Felix running the Kult Cultivator
through the melon field

Last Saturday Jamie and Felix used our Kult cultivator set up to clean up this field. They are doing a great job as a 2-man weed killing team!  Thanks to the efforts of all these guys, we’re hopeful we’ll have some delicious melons to send your way in July and August!

We are very thankful all of our crew members remain healthy and well.  At the end of May we greeted two more crew members who returned from Mexico after receiving their visas! Juan Pablo and Alfredo are brothers and have worked at our farm for many years.  They had to take last year off, but were ready to come back this year and we are so glad they did!  Once they arrived we greeted them from a distance at the airport where we left a vehicle for them along with keys to a house we had kept vacant and reserved for “quarantine” needs.  With a tank full of gas, a cell phone so we could communicate with them, and a fully stocked kitchen, they quarantined themselves away from the rest of the crew and the community.  

Juan Pablo & Alfredo spending time together
as brothers weeding our onions!

They did have a very productive quarantine spent going between their house and whatever weeding mission they were assigned to for the day.  Over the past two weeks they have spent a lot of quality time together bonding as brothers and as yet another 2-man weed killing team!  They have managed to hand weed horseradish, early beets and carrots, parsnips and the entire onion field!  Thankfully they reached the end of their quarantine healthy and well, still thankful to be brothers, and they by no means put themselves out of a job—the weeds continue to grow!

Saturday, June 13--Mulching and Transplanting Tomatoes!

Summer isn’t summer without tomatoes and basil!  We’re happy to report we now have two fields of tomatoes planted!  The first planting has already been staked and tied to keep the plants growing upright both to keep the fruit clean as well as to allow airflow through the foliage.  Pretty soon we’ll need to add another string to the stakes and will continue to weave the plants into place as they grow upward.  Last weekend the mulching crew had the transplanting crew right on their heels as we worked hard to achieve our goal of getting the second tomato field planted.  We had some rain the week before as well as about 2 inches earlier in the week.  The fields were too wet to work in, but the tomato plants were growing quickly in the greenhouse turning from small plants to tomato trees right before our eyes!  They really needed to get to the field before they got much bigger or we would risk breaking them when we tried to plant them.  The crew pulled it off and the field looks great! 

Basil Planting #1 looking quite beautiful
after the cover was removed!

As for the basil, we have planted two of our five plantings in the field and have a third one in the greenhouse that will be ready to take to the field in a week or so.  The early plantings of basil also get covered with a field blanket to protect the delicate leaves from chilly spring nights, but also to trap heat to accelerate growth.  We pulled the cover off at the end of last week and were pleased to see beautiful basil plants underneath!  If you look closely at the plants you can see them smiling, now fully exposed to the sun and emitting a sweet, herbal fragrance in the air all around them!  We should also mention the pepper and eggplant fields look quite nice and we’re hopeful they’ll produce well come late summer.

While we’re just beginning summer, we’re already looking ahead to fall.  After a two week delay in getting our sweet potato slips from North Carolina due to poor weather conditions, we were able to get the last shipment of plants last week and by the end of the week the sweet potato field was completed.  The winter squash field has also been planted and we’ll be transplanting and planting the first of our fall broccoli, cabbage, rutabagas, etc later this week.  We also have a gorgeous field of celeriac that the guys have done an excellent job of cultivating and hand weeding.  I have a feeling summer is going to fly by and fall will be here before we know it!

Precision cultivating of cilantro

Cilantro, dill and red radishes are pretty important crops for our farm, not only because we like to include them in CSA boxes from time to time, but also because they are important wholesale crops for us.  We’ve had some very abundant crops this spring which we’re very thankful for!  Our harvest and washing crews have been bringing in about 15,000 bunches or more of cilantro each week for the past few weeks.  In order to keep a constant supply of these crops we have to plant them every week, which means Amy stays busy keeping the seed containers filled and managing inventory.  Tomas, Manuel, Luis and Rafael have helped not only plant the crops, but also have been doing a good job with timely flame weeding and mechanical cultivation to kill weeds.   Did we mention the weeds continue to grow?

One thing we can hardly wait to eat are freshly dug new potatoes!  It won’t be long before those tender-skinned new potatoes with red skin and creamy white flesh are ready for harvest.  If you’ve never eaten a freshly dug potato, you are in for a special treat!  The potato field looks quite nice and we spotted the first potato blossom at the end of last week!  What else goes nicely with fresh potatoes?  How about some of those tender little carrots with their green tops still attached?  Or maybe the first beets of the season?  Yes, those are all coming within the next few weeks as well.

Immature Broccoli head hidden amongst the leaves

In the meantime, we have our eyes on the second half of our first crop of broccoli and there are three more very nice crops coming up behind it!  Within the next week or two we’ll be cutting one of our favorite early season cabbages, the beloved sweetheart salad cabbage.  Cauliflower will also be coming soon.  We anticipate we’ll need to tie the first planting by the end of this week.  Why would we do that?  When we “tie” cauliflower we wrap a rubberband around the leaves to hold them together.  This keeps the plant closed in order to keep the head of cauliflower from being exposed to the sunshine thereby blanching it so it’s snowy white.

Lupe planting Ginger in the cold frame greenhouse

You asked for ginger, and you will get ginger!  On last year’s survey this was one of the most frequently requested crops you asked us to grow this year.  Last weekend Jose Antonio, Simon, Tomas, Lupe and Jorge worked hard to get the ginger planted in our cold frame greenhouse.  Hopefully we’ll have some nice baby ginger to send your way in October or November!

We can’t give a field report without mentioning garlic!  Can you believe we’ll be harvesting this year’s garlic crop in less than one month!?!  Yikes!  We’re hopeful that we’ll have a bountiful harvest and so far things are looking good.

We hope you continue to enjoy this journey through the seasons with us, embracing each week and the bounty in each box.  We have so many more delicious things to share with you, so get ready to have some fun!   Thus concludes our virtual wagon tour.  We hope you enjoyed the fresh country air, the wind in your hair, blue skies and a little time in nature.  Until the next time…….Farmers Richard, Rafael and Andrea