The tomato plants are on their own.  They started coming in last week and gave us some Sungold cherries and Stupices.  The Romas, Black Krim, Brandywines, Beefsteaks, Purple Cherokees, and Black Cherries are right behind them.  There’s an abomination of an heirloom tomato forming on one of the plants that frightens children and makes the sun dim.  I’m going to bring it to work when it’s ripe.

Water tanks are like hard drives, which are like closets.  No matter how much capacity you have, you will use it up.  We are over-watering the tomatoes out of a.) fear that the 100+ temperatures will dry out our clay soil even though we drip at 4:00 am, and b.) they seem to like it.  Between the trees, tomatoes, basil, and a small patch of summer cover crop (what are we thinking?!) we are using ~1000 gallons a week.  We are going to back the tomato water off next week from 40 minutes a day via 1 gph drippers to 30 and check for ill effects.  My theory is that we have a small lake under the rows and the experiment will therefore be corrupt.  But at least we can use less water.

Dave, our son, came down from Alaska for a week to spend some time in the sun and work on his orange.  We did some interior stucco in the straw bale field shed and cut back a lot of dried grass.  Good fire controls and snake safety.  Plus driving a tiny tractor like a rodeo clown is fun.  The grass got mixed with some of our neighbor’s (horses’) manure for a new compost windrow.  The previous one got spread and seeded with the aforementioned cover crop.

Here’s the thing.  We have Scottish weather in Pacifica by the Sea and our Early Girls are growing like kudzu.  Our tomatoes in the 90-100+ degree heat of Palermo are doing well, but not as well as the Girls.  Perhaps it is the variety.  I can accept that.  But also our backyard compost is so good you could serve it as a side dish.  Our farm soil, not so much.  We are getting there, but we have a whole lot more to improve.  So we are fiddling with some summer cover crop on top of the compost to see if we can get medieval on our paddocks.

With the plants in and the trees another two years from any real production we are down to weeding and construction.  I put up a cell phone extender antenna and now can get a signal inside our Faraday Cage of a straw bale field shed.  We used stucco lath on the inside and outside of the bales to provide sheer strength and something else for the stucco to key into.  It also does a marvelous job of blocking cell signals.  With the zBoost antenna I can now do conference calls and read email from inside the building.  Oh joy!

The Yellow Star Poopyhead Thistle is back with a vengeance, like skeletons in a Harryhausen movie.  Dan picks them out one by one as babies and saves us a larger, hotter battle later.

Dan and I are looking forward to planting a whole bunch more apricots come winter.  We’ll continue to compost the 2400 sf veggie field and grow stuff there, but the message we are getting again this year from the resources on hand are that we should stick to the trees.

Obviously, summer means different things in different places.  In coastal Mendocino, it means it’s warm enough to plant basil (in a sunny sheltered spot or unheated greenhouse), and… fog!  Summer solstice was a lovely, sunny day, and for those of us still scraping off winter’s moss, it was a welcome sight.  Then through today… mostly fog, overcast, and a balmy 60 degrees.  Ahh, coastal summer.  We’ll still have nice, sunny days, but they are scarce enough that… Read the rest of this article »

I should learn to be more careful on this Internet thing.  It turns out I was being stalked by Vanessa and Matthew of Willow Springs Farm.  They found out I was going to Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supply last weekend by, now this is how fiendishly clever they are, actually reading my blog entry.  I know, right? They invited me over after I picked up a bunch of tomato and melon starts to replace the ones that didn’t in our greenhouse (As my mother used to say, “The operation… Read the rest of this article »

That’s a little dramatic, especially for a community that actually likes to watch the grass grow. But yeah. We had some trouble locating OMRI approved gypsum. My dad, who works alongside us, rolled his eyes at this. “Organic calcium? You have got to be kidding.” Peaceful Valley used to carry OMRI-listed gypsum, but the manufacturer no longer packaged it in bags. Our dear friends there special ordered a pallet of the Righteous Powder and we were very grateful. We rented a BCS walk-behind tractor… Read the rest of this article »

After the market on saturdays.  It’s like after-hours for me, except it’s at the farm.   We had three markets this morning and they were nice and busy - just as I like it.  I had a board meeting for the market I sell at.  then I went to the farm and got busy irrigating, sidedressing our (already dwindling) basil with blood meal, and harvesting squash.   It was just me this afternoon and, with the overcast weather, I really got into being there.  Even though I harvested from all… Read the rest of this article »

We are back to our frantic tilling and rock pulling schedule now that the ground has dried out a bit.  We are continuing to prepare ground and plant, and hopefully we’ll have all our ground ready in the next few weeks…. month more likely. We planted basil and green beans, more carrots and reseeded the arugula and cilantro that didn’t germinate well. We are going down to Berkeley tommorow to see my sister’s presentation of her master’s thesis, which is a really amazing… Read the rest of this article »

I went to the last Tuesday market in Nevada City today.  It was a busy market.  So many people came out.  We haven’t had such a busy market all year.  It was nice to end it with plenty of shoppers. For my part, I brought lots of kale, chard, eggplant, peppers, lettuce mix, winter squash, cherry tomatos, peas, basil, celery and broccoli. It was a nice close to the season for me.  Although, I have a solid week of work before the season is over for me. Honestly, these last two months have… Read the rest of this article »

Today is Tuesday and I leave for a market in Nevada City in a couple of hours.  I wanted to get a few sentences in before I left.  Yesterday and today have been heavenly.  The temp is around 80, which is so much better than last week when it hit 104 here.  I love the fall temperatures, and, although we aren’t in fall yet, it is right around the corner. Not a huge harvest today - some tomatoes, lots of peppers, beets, kale, basil, eggplant.  It’s enough to go to market with, which… Read the rest of this article »

So much has changed in the past 5 months. Of course the physical layout of the farm has changed dramatically…going from virgin meadow to cover crop to intense/intensive vegetable cultivation.  Alike, my mind is wrapping around and becoming comfortable with the ever-changing dynamic of the farm. We have completed six weeks of the CSA, a quarter of the season, with 18 more weeks to go.  We have had broccoli every week, buy now that we are approaching consistent mid-90 degree temps at… Read the rest of this article »