We had a big crew out this morning to help with the harvest.  Hope and her kids, and Lisel and our kids all came ready to “get some stuff done.”  On the task list was spinach and swiss chard.  The spinach has been holding out surprisingly well, but finally started to bolt the past couple of days.  So we wanted to get as much of it harvested as possible.  The boys did a great job filling the harvest bins, while the girls did a great job of inventorying the Lady Bug population.  Apparently, it is a sizable population.

Here’s a photo-journal of the morning:

As the sun and the temps rose higher, the wash station became a popular spot.  As did the shade under the partially-finished hoop house.

After a short break for a “wagon” ride to see the pond,

it was back to work, this time pulling beets.  The crew quickly learned to find the big ones.  And the wash station was once again the place to be.

Swiss chard turned out to be the snack of choice this morning,

and the next generation practiced for when it’s time for them take over:

And take over they did.  As the grown-ups finished the last of the washing and sorting, the kids decided to head out on their own:

And that was our fun morning at the farm!

It was a  morning of weeding for us.  Weeding is one of those jobs that provides immediate satisfaction.  You can see the result of your effort right away, and it feels good.

In the photo above, Lisel is taking a break from cleaning up the carrots.  In the foreground are Chioggia beets, followed by Golden Detroit beets, then two beds of carrots where Lisel is standing.  Behind her is Swiss Chard (with really huge leaves), then spinach behind that, and finally the trellised peas.

We try to do our weeding with hoes as  much as possible.  It’s a lot faster, and easier on the back because you can stand up.  Lisel is using a stirrup hoe in the  carrots, because they’ve been  cultivated several times already, and the weeds there are small.  Sometimes, though, pulling by hand is the most effective option, especially when the weeds have gotten big.

Our main weeds are Canada Thistle, bindweed, pigweed, and some lambsquarter.  I’ve noticed a sequence:  first come the thistles early in the spring; next the bindweed starts showing up, followed by lambsquarter and then pigweed.  They’re all relatively easy to cultivate when they and the crops are small.  Thistle is tough once it gets several inches tall.  And they’re all tough once the crops get big.  In the photo below, you can see how the beet tops have filled in to cover the whole bed (and pretty much all of the pathway between the beds!):

The thick cover does act as a living mulch to suppress a lot of the weeds.  Thistle and pigweed don’t do so well.  But the bindweed doesn’t seem to be much phased and starts to get tangled up with the crops.  That’s when hand-pulling is the best option I’ve found.  It’s a lot of work, but definitely satisfying when finally finished!

What a beautiful sunset this evening!  After a frustrating couple of hours of fiddling with the irrigation system, it was nice to end the day on this note.

Rented a plastic mulch layer today to prepare the tomato and pepper beds. Ran into some friends on the way back to the house. “You’re getting serious!” was the comment. Serious, indeed. I spent more frustrating, back-breaking hourslast year doing it by hand than I care to remember. This year, we’re doing it right!

Here’s how we unloaded the layer from the trailer:

Here’s the field mid-process:

Here’s the field after it’s all done.  Can you tell which end I started with?

(Answer: the right side.  It took about 4 beds to get it right)

Here’s a video:

‘Twas the night before pick-up
and all through the walk-in,
the veggies were chillin’,
not one of them talkin’…

Okay, so I’m not a poet.  But the new (to us) walk-in cooler has sure proved its worth already this season.  In the picture above it’s loaded with veggies waiting for pickup.  Inside is lettuce, spinach, radishes, scallions, green onion, beet greens, and swiss chard.

We run it at around 35 degrees F, and it’s amazing how fresh it keeps things.

Sometimes we get things right.  The forecast for the past couple of days has called for rain last night and today, but I’m not very confident in it.  But just in case, on Sunday we made a big push to get summer squash and beans seeded before the rain.  Yesterday I was up early seeding sunflowers at home, and then out past dark last night prepping beds and transplanting spinach.

And guess what?  As I pulled the row cover over the spinach last night (the final transplanting task for me), big rain drops started to fall.  I quickly put the tools away and jogged to the car just as it really let loose.  I drove home with my wipers on full-tilt!  It rained quite a bit last night, and is still raining this morning.  Hopefully all of this moisture will get the newly-planted crops off to a good start.

We have several beds of wonderful-looking spinach.  In the center of the picture above are two beds of it.  One’s a smooth leaf (Space), and the other’s a savoyed (Tyee).  Both taste really good!

The lettuce and scallions are also going gang-busters.  In the picture below, recent lettuce transplants are to the far left (the little plants in a nice grid pattern), ready-to-cut lettuce is next as you move to the right (with lots of bare spots where tranplants succumbed to the fierce winds we got right after they went in the ground), then come radishes, and finally scallions.  To the far right is a bed that was harvested last week.  Since the picture was taken this morning, it has been prepped to receive more lettuce transplants:

Here’s the swiss chard in the center two beds (the right-hand bed had very spotty germination in the right-most row), with spinach to the left and carrots to the right:

Here are two beds (3 rows each) of beets:

And here’s a (relative) close-up of the carrots: