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| | | Hutten Family Farm Newsletter for Wednesday Aug 18, 2021 |
After a period of much rain we have had a couple weeks of very hot and mostly dry weather which has ripened melons and tomatoes. There was a cantaloupe in the CSA boxes today and we should have watermelons next week. I think that we will have enough cherry tomatoes by next week as well.
We have had a lot of problems growing melons over the years but I think that we are getting better at it. Each year is very different. We had a problem in the past with crows eating the melons in the field but I have a neighbour that made me decoys and we placed them in the field to keep the crows away. Crows are very smart and this summer they figured out that the decoys will not hurt them. I have lost hundreds of melons to them already. They also know when the melons are ripe. They very seldom eat an under-ripe melon. Kind of impressive and really irritating at the same time.
There is a planting of cukes that is almost ready to harvest and they should also be in the CSA boxes over the next few weeks. Green peppers are abundant and the different coloured sweet peppers will be coming fairly soon. I usually put different sweet peppers in the CSA quite often but I try to send a reminder email if I put any hot peppers in the boxes so that everyone is aware. We planted a lot of eggplant but I am having some issues with it. There are finally a lot of blossoms and small fruit starting so eggplants should also be showing up soon.
We are very busy planting and transplanting the latest field crops now. We are almost finished transplanting nappa cabbage. Most of the winter crop of daikon is planted as well as many of the fall lettuces and greens. I seeded the last planting of carrots a couple days ago. They should make nice small bunching carrots around halloween.
Apple picking is just starting with the very earliest varieties picked now. I think that we will have some gingergold and gravensteins ready in a couple weeks. We have picked the early golden and Shiro plums and I'll pick some burbank plums tomorrow. The later blue plums (stanley type) are still three weeks away. Peach picking is almost half completed now but we still have three more varieties to pick yet. I picked and ate a few nectarines this summer but the trees are very young and I will not have enough to sell for a couple years.
Things are generally going ok on the farm. I am quite under-staffed and am working more than is probably reasonable. The growing conditions have been very good and the demand has been strong. Most of our fall crops like cabbages, cauliflowers, broccoli, brussels sprouts,kalettes, squash, leeks, beets, and carrots are looking really good although some of them are quite weedy. Such is life.
Have a good week.
t
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