July Farm Update

By Farmer Richard

Tomatillo fruit hanging heavy on the vines
and filling out their husks!

Despite the fact that we just did a farm and field update last month, a lot has changed and happened since then and we want to let you know what’s happening at the farm! We are at the apex of the season, halfway through the calendar year and one-third of the way through our CSA delivery season. The spring crops and weather were quite moderate and we were able to pack quite nice boxes for the early part of the season. But we know you can only eat so many radishes and lettuce and many of us look forward to all the delicious vegetables of summer! We’ve been delivering cucumbers and zucchini for several weeks and we’re in our second week of beans, but there are more summer favorites coming up very soon! If you don’t have time to read all the details of this week’s update, at least take a look at the pictures! Our hope is that we can connect you with our farm virtually so you know where your food is coming from and can have those images in your mind when you unpack your box each week!

The start of this year's garlic harvest, drying in the greenhouse.

Summer did not enter gently this year. The past two weeks have been a new challenge of very hot and humid days. We had a stretch of days reaching 88-90°F every day with high humidity that left us all with beads of sweat running down our brows early in the day. We started off the summer in a bit of a dry spell, but that has quickly changed as we’ve had frequent rains totaling about 9 inches in the past two weeks. If our more normal spring was a result of the extreme cutback in emissions related to COVID-19 changes in travel, etc, then it leaves us wondering if the sudden and recent switch to extreme weather is connected to “opening up.” Hmm….maybe we don’t want to “go back to normal!” Well, normal or not, we are looking forward to the second half of the season and we have a job to do. So here’s a glimpse of what is yet to come.

Rows of tomatoes in our 1st planting--staked,
tied and setting on fruit!

Spring days are highlighted by lots of planting and weed control. While we’re trying to get everything in the ground and keep up with flame weeding, mechanical cultivation and hand weeding spring crops, we are also planting and caring for the summer crops that will follow. Our efforts to control weeds are directly related to the hand of weather conditions we are dealt. While our crew members have done a good job keeping up with timely cultivations, rainy, wet conditions limit what we can do mechanically. Unfortunately, the weeds thrive in these hot, wet conditions which adds salt to our wound and leaves us with some big hand weeding jobs! We’re doing the best we can, but hand weeding requires a lot of crew time that we just don’t have many days. We’ve had a dedicated crew of four people who were hired specifically for focusing on hand weeding missions, but the weeds are growing faster than they can pull them! While the majority of our experienced H2A crew members arrived back in April, we did have several who received “administrative hold” and were not issued visas. Due to pandemic-related changes with the consulate’s office in Mexico, these members had to return home and wait for the call to return for further evaluation. They were also restricting visas to only those who had had a visa previously and were not considering any new applicants. Finally, the

A hillside sweet corn field....look carefully and
you'll see the deer fence surrounding the
field to help deter the critters.

first week in July we received notice letting us know the consulate’s office was ready to look at their cases. We are happy to report that four more crew members received their visas and made the long journey to Viroqua arriving last Thursday! We have only seen them from a distance as they will remain quarantined for 14 days, separate from the rest of our crew and with no contact with others in the community. They arrived healthy and well, going directly to the house we prepared for them complete with a fully stocked kitchen! They’ll reside in this location until the end of their quarantine and will stay busy during the day tackling their own weeding missions in fields we’ve assigned to them safely distanced from any other people. Thankfully, that is the beauty of being in the country where there are wide open spaces! We look forward to integrating Alvaro, Silvestre, Samuel and Joel into our crew in the near future. They all have special skills and contribute greatly to our farm. We’ve really missed them and are thankful to have them here!

An upcoming crop of green beans,
nicely cultivated and setting on blossoms!

That’s enough about weeds though, lets look at some crops! Our first two crops of beans have yielded very nicely and after this week we still have three more crops coming up. They are all looking good and we’re hopeful we’ll be able to keep the bags of beans coming your way! We also have three crops of edamame coming up. The deer population in our area is fully informed that we grow edamame, so we have to be proactive and make sure we keep these crops surrounded by a tall deer fence to keep them from eating the plants! So far, so good and we hope to deliver the sweet, tasty fresh edamame in the near future.

An early crop of sweet corn, notice the small ears of corn.

Summer isn’t summer without sweet corn! While sweet corn isn’t a big money maker for our farm, I’ve always said it’s a crop worth growing because it earns us friends! Every year we have the goal of growing “the best sweet corn ever!” We’ve had many successful years doing so and hope we can pull it off again this year! We have planted five crops and they’re looking pretty good! The first crop suffered some loss from red-winged blackbirds that dug up about 50% of the seed. The remaining crops fared much better, but we still need to be diligent about keeping the critters out of the field! If the raccoons, deer and birds get a taste of the sweet ears of corn, they can really do some damage. These fields are also fenced and we’ll be monitoring them very closely as the corn matures and reaches the point of harvest. We’re also monitoring for the corn earworm moth which migrates from the south. With the reduced bat populations we have a larger challenge to produce sweet corn without these worms. The researchers and experts say it can’t be done organically, but with careful monitoring and a high level of management we have pulled it off many times before! So, we know it can be done and we’re going to do our best. Please know this is quite challenging to achieve, so if you do find a worm, please be forgiving.

The beloved SunOrange tomatoes--so sweet they're like candy!

The cutest little watermelon!

Tomatoes are another beloved summer crop we know you are all looking forward to. We actually had our first sweet taste of SunOrange tomatoes this week! I only found enough to pick a small handful and between Andrea and Amy, they didn’t last long. We have two crops of tomatoes planted, mulched, staked and tied and looking great! The first crop has a lot of fruit set on and we’re hoping we can start picking some of the early varieties within the next few weeks. The eggplant field is also looking quite nice. The plants have blossoms and the start of some small fruit setting on. Things could happen fast at this point, so we anticipate we’ll start harvesting eggplant within the next few weeks.

Our melons and watermelons are not far from the eggplant field, so it seems fitting to report their status now as well! After a few low yielding, disappointing years, this year’s melon and watermelon fields are looking good and setting fruit.  We’re keeping our fingers crossed that this continues and we’ll all be eating some of those “juice dripping down my chin” melons very soon! Lastly, I want to mention the peppers. We’re finally starting to see some fruit set on. The ½-inch jalapenos are quite cute and we’re hoping some of the other varieties will be ready to pick very soon.

While we’re in the midst of summer, we’re already looking to fall crops! The sweet potato vines are spreading nicely and the winter squash fields look great! On our field tour last Sunday we even spotted a nice-sized festival squash! It will be awhile before it’s mature and ready to harvest, but seeing that fruit made us realize how quickly this year is going! We’ve also started planting our fall root crops and within the next couple of weeks we need to plant beauty heart radishes, black Spanish radishes, daikon, turnips, etc.

A view of the sweet potato (left) and winter squash (right)
fields with blue skies overhead!

We also have to look ahead to the next growing season. We are already selecting and reserving fields for a new crop of strawberries knowing we need to plant a new field in 2021. We are also in the midst of garlic harvest which means we’re selecting and saving garlic for next year’s crop. We have had an unexpected increase in CSA members this year, more than double from last year. We welcome this increase and are hope you will all join us again next year as well! CSA is our preferred market to grow for and benefits our farm in many ways. We’ll see what the next year holds. Later in the fall we will be asking you to commit to the 2021 growing season so we may better plan for next year. We hope you will end this season with an increased appreciation for local and high quality organic produce along with a desire to make a commitment for next year. But for now, enjoy the rest of the season!