Rock & Roll Farm

Saturday! Jun 18 2005 // 2:09 pm //

Rolling along

CSA, Day 19; Market, Day 5

Market has been slow the past week, but somehow I’ve still managed to rock it. (This is a special Tantre term, meaning to sell out of nearly everything one puts out on the table). Must be my winning smile and sparkling wit. Or it could be that we have really nice organic, local, hand-picked vegetables and people are taking notice. Eat local!

Remember the chickens that were supposed to lay green eggs? Well, they’re dead. They hadn’t even reached full size yet, so they weren’t able to make good on the green egg claims. Based on the evidence, we’ve decided it was the rooster, in the chicken yard, with the beak. None of us were surprised because this rooster has been trouble from the start. The three-year-old calls him “Scratchy Boo-Boo” because he’s bitten her, and her friends, and a lot of the CSA members’ children, several times. There are only a few adults left who are brave enough to go inside the chicken yard anymore (which of course includes me, I ain’t afraid of no rooster). It helps if you don’t run, and if you carry something large to shield from his attacks. I go for the plastic lawn chairs.

More animal bad news, yet another attempt to breed the cow has been thwarted. This time the vet was in the hospital and couldn’t even make it out to the farm. Last cycle we didn’t get the order to our semen supplier in time. Each of the three cycles before that were actual breeding attempts, but they didn’t take. Save the mosquitoes, seems like we are in some sort of reproduction twilight zone.

We planted peppers, eggplant and cucumbers on Thursday. The peppers and eggplant were seedlings and the cukes were direct seeded. We used black plastic row cover and drip tape (of which I hope to skip-out on the removal).

We really should have the summer squash in the ground by now, but, you know, sometimes that’s just how it goes on the farm. At least this farm.

We’ve had a nice amount of rain this week. Which means the crops are happier, but then so are the weeds and pests. Flea beetles made lace of the turnip and radish greens, but the roots came up nicely. Three or four generations of arugula and spicy greens are obscured by pigweed and lamb’s quarters, but we plant a few beds each week so the wait for a nicer batch won’t be too long. There’s a lot of pressure from sedge in the brassica field, and you can’t see the parsley for the shepherd’s purse in the herb garden. Between the second and third hoophouses is a virtual jungle of dock and lamb’s quarters. You can barely see over it. We’ve been talking about going out there with machetes.

Strawberries have been going strong, and won’t last much longer than Wednesday. That is if the robins and raccoons don’t step-up their attack on all three patches. Some people put floating row cover or some other netting over their strawberries to keep the birds from devastating their crop. Spending time protecting the berries isn’t really a priority for us so we take our chances with the critters.

Sugar snaps, shellers, and snow peas are in. Those sugar snaps taste like watermelon. I can’t help myself eating pint after pint at market. One of the rows didn’t get trellised, but was planted next to a row of favas that ended up providing adequate support.