By Richard and Andrea
Can you believe we’re at the end of August already?! We’re quickly approaching that transition
point in the season where summer and fall vegetables overlap, the days are
busy, the harvests are bountiful and the meals you get to prepare with all
these vegetables are colorful and delicious!
The week’s have been flying by for us and there’s no shortage of tasks
to keep us on our toes. First it was
garlic harvest, then a push to get the onions out of the field. Last weekend we harvested about half of our
potato crop and this week we’ve stayed busy harvesting thousands (literally) of
watermelons! The next big harvests coming
up will be winter squash followed by sweet potatoes and that will bring us up
to fall root crop harvest and our final big harvest push before we close out
the season. Ok, now that we’ve laid it
all out, lets back up and talk through some of the details.
 |
| Farmer Richard inspecting a pheromone trap in the sweet corn field. |
While fall will officially be here before we know it, we
still have a lot of summer to enjoy! We
hope you’ve been enjoying this year’s sweet corn, which has turned out better
than we had anticipated. Some of the
sweet corn blew over in the storms we had back in July, but thankfully the
crops have come through despite that and the corn has been very good! After this week we’ll have one crop remaining
to harvest. This is the time of the year
when we have to watch out for corn earworm, a pest that starts as a moth which
lays its eggs on the silks of the corn.
When the egg hatches a little worm makes its way down the silks and into
the ear. It’s a harmless, but annoying
little creature. We’ve been monitoring
its activity, first through reports from University extension who reported
sightings in Coon Valley, which is not far from us. Those reports coincided with the first moths
we caught in our pheromone traps. We’ve
been using an organically approved spray to treat this pest and try to prevent
the worms from being a problem. So far
it looks like our tactics have been effective, but you may still find a worm or
two in this late season corn. If you do,
just trim the tip off the ear as the remainder of the corn is still wholesome
and delicious!
 |
| Mini Sweet Pepper Field |
As we move into the latter part of summer we are also
reaping the benefits of sweet peppers, tomatoes, and watermelons! This has been one of the most productive
watermelon crops we’ve ever had! Between
watermelons, melons, tomatoes and corn, it’s been a challenge to get everything
in the boxes! We are just starting to
pick tomatoes from our second planting, so there will hopefully be several more
bountiful weeks of tomatoes. The sweet
peppers are just starting to change colors, so look forward to a variety of
orange Ukraine, Orange and Red Italian Frying peppers and of course, mini sweet
peppers! If you’re finding the quantity
of food you’re receiving is quite a lot for your household during this peak
part of the season, consider how you can tuck away some of these vegetables
through simple preservation methods so you can enjoy them throughout the winter
and they don’t go to waste! If you have
extra tomatoes, chop them up and cook them down, then either freeze the coarse
“sauce” or puree it. If you don’t have
time for the cooking part, just freeze your tomatoes. If you have freezer space, all you have to do
is wash them and cut out the core. Put
the whole tomatoes in a freezer bag and put them in the freezer. When you take them out you can cook them down
into a soup or sauce. Peppers are also
easy to freeze as you can freeze them raw.
I (Andrea) will include some of these preservation tips from week to
week in the newsletter, so look to this resource for some guidance.
Looking ahead to some of our fall crops, we are happy to
report that the sweet potatoes and winter squash crops both look very good at
this point! Richard dug some sweet
potatoes just to see what was happening underground and they look great! The butternut squash are so thick you can
barely walk in between the rows in the field.
We’ll likely start harvesting them within the next few weeks, which
means we need to get the rest of the onions and shallots trimmed, cleaned and
into the cooler!
 |
| An established cover crop is important to prevent erosion over the winter! |
Last week we put out the last of our transplants with our
fall lettuce crop and a crop of escarole and radicchio that we hope to harvest
in November. We’ve completed all of our
main season plantings including our fall storage turnips and radishes. We still have several weeks of plantings to
complete for the crops we plant weekly including radishes, cilantro, bok choi
and our fall spinach and salad mix.
Aside from this small lineup, we’re turning our attention to planting
cover crops! This past week we received
over 7,000# of cover crop seed and we plan to plant it all! Cover crops are an essential part of our
system and we rely upon them to hold our soil in place over the winter as well
as for the nutrients and organic matter they build in our soils. Of course there’s also the benefit they offer
to the planet as they sequester carbon.
It’s an investment in time and money, but one we feel more than pays for
itself in returns!
 |
| Steam rolls off the compost pile as it is turned with the compost turner |
As we “put our fields to bed for the winter,” we’ll also
be spreading minerals and compost to put fertility back into the soils for next
year. Silvestre has made some nice
windrows of compost and it’s heating very nicely! After the last turn it heated to 160°F
overnight! In order to be compliant with
the NOP (National Organic Program), it needs to be maintained at 140°F
for a minimum of 15 days and we will turn it to stir it up and incorporate more
oxygen a minimum of 5 times during that period.
This process not only turns the raw materials into actual compost, but
the time it’s held at these temperatures also kills weed seeds and any
pathogens. By the time it’s finished it
will look like “black gold!”
 |
| Benchmark for the water level is in place (lower left) & the permit is posted! |
We usually start our conversations by somehow talking
about the weather, so we’d better circle back and cover that topic! Despite receiving rain over the past few
weeks, we’re still pretty dry! Our
irrigation crew continues to work hard to keep up with the moisture losses we
see simply based on evaporation and transpiration. Now that the plants we’re watering are more
mature, they lose more moisture every day as they “breathe,” but we also see
greater moisture loss when it’s windy and hot.
On the topic of irrigation, we’re happy to report that we did receive
our irrigation permit that was pending for one of the properties we lease. We shared about this application process and
our irrigation practices in an article we published last month. We are grateful for the support of the DNR in
issuing this permit, but also for the positive feedback we received from some
of the community members who initially had expressed concern about this
application. We will continue to do the
best we can to manage our irrigation practices responsibly. Last week Richard and Luis put in the
benchmark for the new permit, posted the permit and we’re hoping to start
irrigating soon.
 |
| Cows grazing on green pastures |
In the pastures, we’re happy to report both the cows and
pigs are content, thriving and doing well.
The cows continue to enjoy their pasture grass and we have a good supply
of hay put up for their winter feed. The
pigs have also been eating well and are starting to enjoy hickory nuts falling
in their pasture. Hopefully they’ll have
a few acorns to snack on this fall too!
While we are sold out of pork for this fall’s deliveries, we do still
have beef available. If you are
interested in stocking up for the winter, you might want to consider purchasing
a custom half beef. It’s our most
economical offering and you get to choose how you want it processed! Just email Andrea, our meat lady, if you are
interested.
Well, there are many other crops and farm activities we
haven’t even touched on, including the gorgeous purple and yellow cauliflower
that we’re harvesting this week! We
still have a lot of work ahead of us to finish out the second half of our CSA
season. Pretty soon we’ll also start
laying the groundwork for next year’s CSA program and start pre-booking seeds
and supplies for next year. The cycle
keeps going and we continue to be grateful for your support of our farm. Enjoy the final weeks of summer and we’ll
meet you back here later this fall for another update!
