Heirloom Harvest

Now's the Time

Don’t miss the chance to get your volunteer hours done early in the year, when the weather is still comparatively cool and the mosquitoes are fewer and farther between. The farm is a lovely place to be outdoors just now; your editor saw tree swallows, rough-winged swallows and barn swallows today, heard wood thrushes and saw red-winged blackbirds.

Rain Date

Sunday brought a soaking rain to pickup time. Mimi Cronyn lugged share support stuff around the watery pickup area. There were two strategies that members used to deal with the rain. They either wore ordinary clothes and got soaked, or sought to defend themselves, as did these two (click the pic to see them -- artsy blogger alert!) on the way to collect their you-pick items.

Farmer John stopped a moment from crawling around the eggplant fields where black plastic is set to keep the weeds down to discuss the rain (Farmers like rain, at least when it’s not falling on their heads).

The perfect (?) recipe?

I don't have time to time to try this pea salad tonight, but maybe you do? I'll get everyone a report just as soon as I can.

What's in a Name

Ever drive by a subdivision and get the sense that its name celebrates something antithetical to what it represents? Farmer John presents this list of mocking monikers he culled from a mailing list to which he subscribes.

Lost Farms Subdivision
Asphalt Acres
Drivemore Estates
Curb-Cut Crossing
ChemLawn Valley Stream
Denuded Hills Office Park
Paved Prairie Elementary School
Mowmor Meadows
Woodless Way
Soil-Scrape Square
Blooming Billboards Boulevard
Rapid Runoff Hills
Fry Pit Vista
Screeching Trimmer Country Club
Bountiful Mortgage Parkway
Phosphate Ponds
Vanished Oaks
Weed Whacker Lane
Leaf Blower Terrace
Thrusting Garages Avenue
Peak Oil Prospects
Changing Climate Causeway
Fruitless Garden Homes
Rising Seas Beach
Falling Aquifer Retirement Center
Burnefuel Resort

Scouting For Help

We have a group of Cub scouts coming in Sunday: Cub Scout Pack 33 of Westborough. We’re not sure exactly what we’ll be doing with them; we’ll see what they’re capable of. It could be transplanting, harvesting, putting up tomato stakes. If you are interested in your community’s group participating in work at the farm, you are welcome to contact the blogger at whit@pobox.com. He’s not involved in operations but he is less seasonally busy than the farmer!

Melon Up

We just finished transplanting out a majority of the watermelon crop. We transplanted three varieties, including Blacktail Mountain, which was bred to grow in Idaho with a short season. Also, we planted Cream of Saskatchewan, which is an heirloom variety that was brought to Canada by immigrants from Russia who had developed it for their short seasons. And we transplanted out the brussels sprouts.

Forward-looking Statements

Some of you have requested that we post/predict the share each week, but we can't do that. A farmer can visit fields on a Friday and think he knows what will be ready to harvest Sunday, but a change in growing conditions could mean that any prediction is turned wrong. We might have better senses later in the year of what crops will be sure things for the next pickup, or that might not be possible. So we are holding off predictions for what will be available this week.
We’ve had no harm from the substantial rains recently. Even the wet area that’s mostly surrounded by wetlands is in good shape, and doing particularly well as it has lain fallow for some years and therefore has no significant pest population that can live through the winter in the earth and then pop up the following spring.
Volunteers are welcome now, of course. This is one of the parts of the year that requires the most effort in the fields, and the benefit for volunteers is that the mosquito population is still relatively small.

Rain Starting

We’ve planted out the first rounds of tomatoes and potatoes. We direct-seeded the bush beans, and we are erecting the netting trellises for the peas to grow up. This year, weather and farm variables permitting, we are going to have sugar snap peas, shelling peas, and snow peas. Snow peas are new this year: They have a flatter pod, and are typically used in stir fry, when you cook them. They’re also sweet enough to be eaten right off the vine.

As for the first pickup, we can’t of course, make any promises, but we are hoping for the first week of June. The plants are running a little late; they’re sulky right now because of the cool weather.

The heavy rain has not caused us any harm. We have been doing pretty well because we have good drainage except at the far back at the back edge of the field next to the forest. There’s a shady enclosed one-acre plot that juts out into the swamp there. It’s sheltered from the wind, and members wouldn’t typically go there because it’s not in the you-pick area, ever. We do have some crops back there already, but it seems to have weathered the soupy soil back there. We’ve picked things that don’t mind the water, like lettuce.