Week 3 On the Farm

Well Farmies, I can hardly believe that it has only been 3 weeks! So much has happened… I figured out that if everyone gets their hours in each week, it is over 250 hours of work on the farm weekly! No wonder! …Not to mention the fabulous Paul Stoehr on his Ford tractor!

On a less happy note, John Finch went home from a hard day’s work on the farm, and while trying to pull open a stuck window, ruptured his right bicep tendon. He will be having surgery on Wednesday to have it repaired. We hope he will heal fully, quickly, and easily, and be back to the farm in time to be pulling up beets and carrots! (John’s car is a stick shift, so he is looking for rides to enrichment sessions from the University City area.) And, as I think you all have heard, both Kathryn and Kembo have had to drop out. We are so sorry not to have them around but wish them much success in their endeavors, and hope that they will still come to visit!

Weather & Precipitation Summary: Storms last Saturday caused us to be rained out of our field work on Sunday. It has been really warm since, with most days in the 80’s (with a high of 86), with just enough rain.

We Planted:
1. 800 more Mars red onions
2. Bulls Blood & Chiogia Beets
3. more Arugula, leaf and head lettuce, (can’t wait to see the pattern!), Carrots (dragon, purple haze-f1, atomic red, ya ya, & red core chanteney), Forst Green Parsley, Shinkyo Radish, Broccoli Raab, Rainbow Kale, Cilantro, Chives, Dill and Nasturtium

We Tended:
1. To the weeds in our peas and lower fields.
2. our plants in the greenhouse: All of the cool weather crops that are outside hardening off getting ready for transplant… though many have acquired aphids….
3. The aphids on the plants in the green house, which can be dealt with by spraying a very strong stream of water… I hope! Also hoping to release lady bugs in the greenhouse as they eat up to 50 aphids per day!

We Harvested:
1. Nothing yet… unless you count the weeds!

We prepped 7, one-hundred foot beds and planted all of them!!!

We used the following new infrastructure, tools or supplies:
* Paul Stoehr pulled a tilling tool across our fields–making the beds so much easier to work in.

Celebrations & Special Memories:
* A wonderful enrichment session Monday night with Vandana Shiva at Webster university.
* Easter Sunday crew made a 100 foot raised bed in record time!!!
* Friday mornings crew got to work with our neighbor, John Wilkerson, who is a treasure chest of everything you could ever want to know about organic farming in our area.
* Our seed potatoes are in and we will begin to plant them next week! Please watch the video (starring John Wilkerson ) about the potato harvester.

Special THANK YOU to:
* John Wilkerson for his willingness to help with our potatoes!!!
* Steve for his amazing willingness to haul compost and water in his truck! We will be needing lots more if anyone else has a truck!?!
* The sun and the rain and the blooming flowers everywhere!
* To everyone who worked so hard on the farm this week

Namaste.
Vicki