It’s a sunny Sunday, 50 degrees and nearly June. We have some confused plants, but the bugs know what to do. With 500 sweet potato plants in the garage waiting to be planted, it’s a little touch and go. They need to go into raised beds, in 85 degree weather, 2 hours before dark to avoid the drying hot winds. So far they appear to be happy in their buckets. Later this week, perhaps.
Thursday’ nighttime temperature was “iffy” here. We raked straw back over the strawberry plants to catch the frost before it hit the sea of blossoms. Bill ran the heater in the transplant hoop house again Thursday night to avoid the risk of everything freezing, which happened 3 years ago. We finally dare get the “tropicals” out of the hoop house and onto the hay rack for hardening off. The melons, cukes, and zukes are starting to fill up their pots and will need to go out and brave the elements in about a week.
We’ll finish harvesting the spinach and lettuce in the hoop house this week and will be harvesting from the field next week. Beds of beets and carrots should be ready soon for a one time harvest of baby beets and carrots before replanting. Potatoes are up, corn has germinated, and with a little heat, the large winter squash and pumpkins should start popping. Radishes are getting beaten up by flea beetles, but we don’t eat the leaves so we’ll let them go and see what happens. Beeetles got the first plantings of kale but those are replanted and up. . . under row cover. Arugula? . . . under row cover.
This week’s picks and deliveries will repeat last week’s and include asparagus, rhubarb and honey (unless you received them last week), lettuce, green onions, spinach and some chives and thyme. In other words, the gardens are playing a “waiting game”. Every year is different.
We want to continue U-pick training for those of you new pickers. You’ll get a feel for the system of picking, see the farm, and take home some of the early season crops. It’s not a big start to the garden, but it fits in between our two main planting seasons. We’ll make a small delivery or farm share pick up this week that will not count as one of your ten. We want to share the early season crops with every one.