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| | | Hutten Family Farm Newsletter for Monday May 16, 2011 |
Is anyone other than me getting kind of sick of rain? I spent a good part of today with two employees outside in the fields picking vegetables for the CSA boxes. Today I wish that I was really clever and didn't have to farm to make a living. We picked rhubarb, salad greens, and radishes for the boxes today. After we washed off the mud, the radishes looked very nice. Hopefully the forecast for the rest of the week is accurate. They are calling for some partly sunny days soon.
Everyone is talking about the rain around here. We have had almost six inches of it in the last week. I am beginning to see some crop loss and crop damage from all the moisture. The zucchini that we transplanted under row cover are turning yellow. They will likely die in the next few days if we do not get some sun and wind to dry the land. My first planting of beans is in a similar situation. One of the biggest problems with rainfall like this is the inability to weed and cultivate the crops. We are also getting behind with seeding and transplanting. On a positive note we planted all our early crops on sandy soil so when the sun comes out, they should dry up quickly.
There should be enough heads of leaf lettuce for all the boxes this week. This is coming from an unheated coldframe behind the house. Because of the weather we have had some slug problems in the lettuce and also in some other crops. I am using beer cans to try and bait the slugs away from the lettuce. Some of the slugs crawl into the beer cans and drown in the little bit of beer in the bottom. Some people might be a bit jealous but I'm not. I would rather drink milk.
As I mentioned before, we picked rhubarb as well for the boxes. Try adding some rhubarb to any recipe for apple crisp; it really is good. We are now finished with apple cider for the spring and summer. It will return in the early fall when the new crop of apples begins.
Have a good week. Ted
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