The News from Windflower Farm
What’s in the vegetable share?
- Tomatoes
- Basil
- Beets
- Fennel
- Kale OR Chard from Denison Farm (your choice)
- Lettuce
- Cucumbers
- Onions
- Beans
Everything in your share was grown organically at Windflower Farm except for the kale and chard, which were grown organically by our neighbors at the Denison Farm. What’s coming soon from our fields? Sweet corn, sweet peppers and beans. Your fruit share will be a quart of Yonder’s peaches.
News from the farm
Nate is using the Bezzerides Spyders today. His goal is to get through the last two plantings of corn, the second succession of beans and all the leeks. It’s an old-school tool made of steel fingers instead of the plastic that is more common with today’s cultivating equipment. It destroys weeds and gently hills the crop. If you were lucky enough as a kid to have a bike with a whirling pinwheel on the handlebar, you’d have a sense of the Spyder. Imagine making a pinwheel out of steel, turning it upside down, hanging it from the belly of a tractor, and dragging it through the soil. Now picture four of them in a gang, two for each crop row. You’d be pleasantly surprised by the result.
In Nate’s case, the Spyders are mounted on the belly of the latest of our electric tractors. This one is our ‘Ultralight’, made 750 lb lighter than our previous model by switching from lead-acid to lithium batteries and using a narrower gauge of steel in the wheels. We’ve also been using it with lighter weight implements. We had been breaking axles, which is not good, and needed to lessen the tractor’s torque requirements. So far, so good. Still, we are on the hunt for a more robust axle. We don’t want to have to pamper our equipment. To that end, we’ve begun working with a new producer of heavy-duty electric axles in Italy (unfortunately, this is just in time for Trump’s 40% tariff on everything coming from the EU). My search for a US-made axle has not been successful.
The team rallied last week in the wake of our hailstorm. We mowed ruined crops or turned them under, transplanted everything that was on-deck in the greenhouse, weeded greens that we might otherwise have let go, and stepped-up irrigation. Nevertheless, the impact of the storm will continue to be felt for a few weeks. Good news: last week’s Department of Agriculture and Markets produce safety inspection resulted in an A rating.
On Saturday, after watering plants in the greenhouse, we put canoes on the Toyota pickup and headed to Boreas Pond Wilderness. Paddling among the loons, swimming in an Adirondack Lake, and relaxing with my family against the backdrop of the high peaks was just the thing for this tired old farmer.
Have a great week, Ted
Central Brooklyn CSA 