The News from Windflower Farm
What’s in your share?
- Arugula or chard
- Basil
- Tomatoes
- Red leaf lettuce
- Choy
- Cucumbers
- Squashes
- Yellow onions
- Eggplants
Your fruit share will be stone fruit from Yonder Farm. When I mentioned our collaboration with Denison Farm last week, I failed to mention our long-time collaboration with Markristo Farm as another means of mitigating risk. They have grown organic green beans and edamame for us for many years. Their crops are just beginning to mature.
What’s new on the farm?
Thursday. The big storm that was coming when I last wrote brought, to our disappointment, just under 2/10 of an inch of rain last week. But it did rain today. It was the smallest blip on the map. A little dark orange against green on the Doppler, and we expected it to blow right past us, except that it didn’t. It dropped almost exactly an inch of rain, and along with it a new sense of possibility. The rain added nothing to our ponds: every drop soaked into the parched earth. We were all in the field when it came, and we were overjoyed to be soaked through by the refreshing rainfall. Once inside and dry, I laid down to rest and fell deeply asleep, at ease in the knowledge that the entire farm got exactly what it was in desperate need to get.
Sunday. I’ve come in briefly after an irrigation change. It’s 11:45 and the temperature is 88 degrees. We have been told to expect 93 today. I can’t wait. I’m in shorts and a straw hat; the Medinas are in long sleeves and hoodies. I enjoy the evaporative cooling, but I can’t help but feel I’m missing out on something that people in hot places everywhere have figured out. The greens harvest – arugula, lettuce and choy – was wrapped up early this morning, the tomato harvest is nearly complete, and a first harvest of peppers and eggplants is about to get underway. Later, as we do every day, we’ll buzz through the cukes and zukes. And then it’s off to the last block of garlic. If you are a farmer, there’s nothing like a little rainfall to put some bounce in your step. But it is 94 degrees now, and with the humidity it feels like 99. It’s 3:30 and I’m done for the day. I come in and crack open a beer.
Monday. I have had to toss out the rest of the note to you in which I continued to complain about the weather. It rained again last night, and it is raining still – we are coming on our second inch, and it seems as though there is more to come. I bet that the ponds are being recharged. I know that I am.
I am happy to turn my attention to farm tasks beyond irrigation. There is a good deal to be done on the farm this week. The harvest list of crops we’ll take into storage includes beets, fennel, yellow onions and red and green cabbage. The hand weeding list: collards, fall cabbage, Delicata squash and ginger. The tractor cultivation list: leeks and corn with the Checchi, arugula with the Kress Duos and fall Brassicas with the Steketee setup. The greenhouse seeding list: lettuce, tatsoi, zucchini, cucumber, and fall kohlrabi. The field seeding list: arugula, radishes, fall beets, fall carrots and salad greens, all with the Sutton Spider, and flat beans with the Cole Multi.
Have a great week, Ted
Central Brooklyn CSA 