The News from Windflower Farm
Hello from Windflower Farm, where we have spent recent evenings binge watching Downton Abbey. My favorite lines so far have come from the dowager countess, Maggie Smith’s character: “’Weekend,’ what’s a weekend?” But another line also resonates: According to Daisy, the kitchen maid, “No farmer is his own boss. He takes his orders from the sun and the snow and the wind and the rain.”
What’s in your share?
- White cipollini onions
- Hakurei turnips
- Fordhook Swiss chard
- Squash or cukes
- Tendersweet cabbage
- Romaine lettuce
- Tomatoes
- Genovese basil
Your fruit shares will be blueberries from us or Yonder Farm.
What’s new on the farm?
A Great Blue Heron flies low overhead on its way from one pond in the neighborhood to another. I am returning from the back fields with an empty sprayer. Leaf hoppers and Colorado potato beetles have moved into our potatoes and will ruin the crop if given enough time. In a brief window between rains, I have sprayed a brew of beneficial fungi, root extracts and soaps to slow the progress of the little bugs. Beetle larvae are straightforward in their attack: they eat leaves, and in their many thousands can eventually defoliate a crop. A good rotation is usually adequate to prevent infestation, but not this year. Leafhoppers are a little more complicated: they pierce and suck, using their proboscis like a straw, slurping the potato sap. They exude a toxin in the course of their feeding, and it is the “hopper burn” it produces that is most damaging to the plant. At this point, a spray is the only thing between a poor crop and a good one.
The materials I’ve chosen to protect our crops are supposed to have minimal impact on non pest insects, but it is not zero impact. Bird chatter and distant tractors are the only sounds I hear as I write this, but I know that throughout the Americas and Europe songbirds are disappearing at an alarming rate, as are the insect populations upon which they depend. The heron, especially – perhaps because of its great size or its graceful flight – reminds me of what might be lost in the wake of climate change and habitat destruction. These encounters with our wild neighbors help me to take seriously my stewardship of this small farm and improve my decision making regarding our farming practices.
Have a great week, Ted
Central Brooklyn CSA 