We figured many of you might like to see what things look like at the farm these days.  (Warning: this will be a pretty large post with lots of photos.  Trying to make up for missed postings, I guess.)

It’s been a cool, wet spring, which has kept us out of the field, delaying some planting, and causing many of the crops to take their time getting going.  But not the over-wintered rye.  It’s thriving.  Knee-high, in fact (to a 6 year old).  We seeded it last fall as a cover crop to keep the soil from blowing away and to add some organic material this spring.  We better’d mow and turn it under soon, or it’ll get too big for our equipment!  The beds in the picture above are where the peppers will go in a few weeks.

The picture below shows the onion/garlic section.  The big plants on the left are garlic.  The thin wispy plants on the right are recently-transplanted onions.  The third row from the right is very yellow.  Not sure what’s going on there.  The next row to the left is the one that all you volunteers planted back in April.  Though you can’t really tell in the picture, they look very green and healthy.

The picture below shows the pea patch.  Some are trellised, some aren’t.  I just noticed today, after doing a little exploratory digging, that they have started germinating.  So hopefully it won’t be long before they poke through the soil.

The next two pics show the main area that’s been planted so far.  The first shows lines of drip irrigation on the beet/spinach/swiss chard/carrot beds.  After that heavy rain a few weeks ago, we started having problems with the soil crusting.  So we used the drip irrigation to soften the bed tops without sprinkling water on the already-saturated pathways.

The second picture below shows how we use row cover to warm up the soil and hopefully speed up the growing a little.  Under those covers are lettuces, salad mix, radishes, and turnips.

In the picture below are the tiny spinach plants that are steadily getting bigger every day.  They don’t mind the cool weather at all! (Also in the picture are a few of the untold number of weed seedlings that are poking up everywhere.  Mostly bindweed.  Criminy; yet another urgent issue that must be dealt with immediately!)

Here’s two of the four kinds of lettuce that we transplanted: Black Seeded Simpson (the green), and Merlot (the red).

Here’s the salad mix:

Here’s a peak at some of the cole crops we transplanted.  Unfortunately, we did so right before that big wind storm blew through with 80 mph winds.  The kohlrabi and about half of the broccoli came through okay, but the other half of the broccoli got pretty beat up.  Hopefully it will recover.

And, here’s a peak at some of the bok choy and the radishes that are growing under the row cover:

Finally, an overview shot of the north half of the field.  Notice all those weeds on the left side.  Those are Canada Thistle, and we better get busy cutting them down (right after we deal with all the bindweed seedlings)!  That’s where the pumpkin patch will be.  (Also notice Annie posing Felix the Rabbit, who traveled all the way from Massachusetts to spend a few days with us.  But that’s a topic for another post.)

Cheers.

-Mike