The News from Windflower Farm
Happy Independence Day from Windflower Farm!
What’s in your share?
- Ruby Red Swiss chard
- Scallions
- Red beets
- Toscano kale
- Purple kohlrabi
- New Red Fire lettuce
- Squash and/or cukes
- Garlic scapes
Sweet cherries from Yonder Farm will be in your shares this week.
Beets and Swiss chard are new to the lineup beginning this week. Cabbage, collard greens and fennel will be ready perhaps as early as next week, and our tomatoes are beginning to break orange and red and yellow, which means they might be read next week, too. Our first planting of sweet corn is in the whorl stage, so harvest is still three weeks away, putting it near the end of July. Last week, I called Martin Stosiek, a Columbia County farmer and friend who will be growing some of your beans. He says to expect them to be ready toward the end of July, too.
What’s new on the farm?
The rain gear came out this week. The gauge totaled 1 ½ inches after three rainy days, not nearly as much as what fell to the south and north of us, but enough to make my week. Ponds are full, the soil is at field capacity and irrigation can be scratched from the to-do list. Happy news. Tomorrow, after a day of sunshine, we’ll be back to planting. We have a round of cabbages and collards to transplant in the Cemetery Field and all kinds of salad greens slated for our biggest field. Field conditions are nearly perfect and I can’t wait for my planting team to arrive!
A glimpse at this week’s weeding to-do list: Hand weed the last five beds of leeks and four of cabbage. Use the small four-row discs on the G tractor in beds of newly emerging carrots and beets. Set the flex-tine weeder on the back of the tractor to a light degree of pressure. Use the four-row Steketees on the steerable cultivator in the lettuces and radicchio. Use the large two-row hilling discs on the John Deere for the last corn cultivation in succession #1 and the small discs for successions #2 and #3. And pull the weeds emerging from the holes the sweet potatoes are planted into. It’s all hands on deck.
And so goes another week. I hope you have a great one, Ted
Central Brooklyn CSA 