Well, after the freeze, we haven’t looked back.  We’ve been planting out peppers, eggplant - we even put out zucchini and cucumbers today.

We’ve direct-seeded beans, planted out basil.  We’ve just gone to town with the summer stuff, and the cool weather stuff is just maturing.

I am pushing the season.  I’m sure this is a classic first-year, wet-behind-the-ears mistake, but it is working so far The tomatoes are growing like gang-busters (assuming “gang-busters” do good growing?) and all the other summer stuff is doing great.  Sure, the low temps last week gave me some righteous nightmares, but somehow, I’m sure, it’s probably going to be worth it…someday, maybe.

My help has disappeared for the moment.  My good buddy, Paul, went back to Gotham after a week-long stint at the farm (don’t believe anything he writes about me).  Ryan is gone for the next week and a half.  I tend to get a little bit overwhelmed at times like these, but I think I am getting better, and will make it through this period just fine.  Nevertheless, words of encouragement and support are greatly appreciated (equally welcome are good thoughts about this endeavor).

I didn’t address this, but we had a serious frost here last weekend. I know I touched base about it, but now I am starting to understand just how serious it was.  It didn’t really do much damage here at Wildgrace - 10 or so tomatoes, a few brassicas, etc - but the other farmers in the area got hit big time. Some of my farmer friends lost all of their brassicas, all of their fruit…everything they had out.  Even down in the valley, in Davis, they had a freeze (which set… Read the rest of this article »

Andrew labels varieties of tomatoes I haven’t been to the farm yet this morn.  It got cold last night, even colder than Saturday night.  We lost a few tomatoes to the frost on Saturday night, but not many.  We had them covered with Agribon, and last night we put a double layer over every row.  It seems like that was prudent.  I don’t know the temp, but it feels like it got below 32 degrees. I have a couple of friends with me this week, so that eases the work load. … Read the rest of this article »