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| | | Hutten Family Farm Newsletter for Thursday Jun 27, 2024 |
We had a nice rain today and it was the second rain event in the last week. Much needed and it looks like there is more in the weekend forecast. This spring season has been one of the drier and warmer springs I have experienced. Problematic for some crops and pretty great for others. We have started picking zucchini and pattypans now. We are harvesting spring nappa and cabbages as well as the first radicchio. The pepper and eggplants are covered with small fruit now. I expect to have a few hot peppers in a couple weeks and sweet green peppers in three weeks. Strawberries are winding down already but there is a lot of fruit and berries that are getting close to harvest. I ate a couple montmorency (sour) cherries today as well as a couple sweet cherries. Both types are between five and ten days away from starting to harvest. Red currants will start next week with white and black currants the following week. The plum crop is so heavy this season that we had to thin some of the crop load off of the trees today. That will be a nice change from last years total stone fruit crop loss. Peaches are about one and a half inches across now and the crop is good. The cherry crop is a bit light but still pretty reasonable. Apples and pears are light but good as well. The earliest blueberry variety (Duke) is now showing some tinges of red/blue on the sides of the berries. I think about three weeks away for any significant amounts. We removed the row covers from the melon crops yesterday so we could weed them. They also look very good at this stage. Melons usually start the second week of August. Overall I would say that the fruit on the farm is doing well.
Vegetable selection will also change and increase rapidly now. We have tiny green and yellow beans on the plants now and I would think we will start picking in a good week. I have eaten a few sungold cherry tomatoes and they should start producing some volumes within a couple weeks. All the sungold tomatoes are planted and trellised in unheated cold frames. The plants are currently about six feet high and growing really well. Most other types of tomatoes are planted outside in fields and will start later in the summer.
When we are not harvesting and weeding we continue to plant each week. All the winter squash is planted as well as the winter cabbages. Multiple plantings of lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, and random other vegetables are being seeded weekly in the greenhouse and planted outside once ready. The rowcovers that we used in early April and May for insect control and increased heat are being moved from those crops (that are sold and finished) and used to covers heat loving crops like the melons and the eggplants. We will leave them on the melons and eggplants until there is significant blossoms. We remove them at this point to allow bees to pollinate the crops.
Have a good week.
ted
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