The only thing new for the farmers’ market this week were a couple of rows of Rebel radishes, with their signature flea beetle-bitten leaves—today was nothing like the busy Friday harvest days to come… Radish is the only brassica crop I grow that doesn’t have to be row covered against FBs. They grow so fast that the damage doesn’t hold ’em back much, and most people around here don’t eat the leaves… Here, they’re bunched and floating in one of the rinsing tubs. They could’ve used a few more days in the ground to get BIGGER, but they’re light and perfectly crisp as they are. Tasty! (Guest photo by Shannon.)
Harvest
Found: chives, spinach, rhubarb…
Harvest for the second farmers’ market of the season was OK, but still what I think of as kinda found crops. There’s the first market harvest ever of rhubarb, a binful (20 bundles or so) from the fairly giant patch (about 60 divisions) planted three years ago—kinda stubby, compared to the more sheltered rhubarb behind the farmhouse, but tasty all the same. There’s also 15 lbs (6.8kg) of all-lettuce mesclun from the greenhouse, around 10lbs (4.5kg) of new-growth spinach from a few beds planted last fall, 15 pounds of Jerusalem artichoke, some chives, overwintered and in full return in the herb garden, and a few bags of arugula. Enough to keep our hand in at the market, but I’m really waiting on new stuff from the field…!
First harvest 2008!
Tomorrow’s farmers’ market, the third of the season, will be the my first. This is the usual timing, although I made it on the second market day last year (our market starts on the first Saturday of May). The earliest harvest for field crops will probably be all-lettuce mesclun in a couple of weeks. But I do have the mesclun in the unheated greenhouse, a small quantity grown specifically for getting to the market as early as possible. So, today’s harvest-for-show: around 20 lbs (9kg) of lettuces-and-arugula mesclun. Not much. But, we also gathered about 10lbs (4.5kg) of “found” spinach (tasty new growth from spinach that made it to baby-leaf stage last year, overwintered, and started again this spring; green onion was last year’s early market found crop). Spinach and salad mixes are sold by the bag, and weight varies slightly depending on what and when: for this round, it was all 400g bags (just under a pound), around 35 units total. Also, collected an assortment from the herb garden: sage, thyme, oregano and chives. Plus, around 20 lbs (9kg) of Jerusalem artichoke. Enough to for a tiny spread! I love the market, for me, it’s as much part of veggie gardening as anything that happens in the field, certainly not a tacked on “business” end… Although cold, rainy weather is in the forecast, people always come out, and tomorrow should be fun!
Rinsing station gear comes out
Today was the day I decided to bring out the rinsing gear! Upfront for its fourth (or fifth?) season, the trusty Maytag washer turned giant salad spinner. Once again, after a winter in the unheated drive shed, it started up (on Spin, of course) without a protest. (Maybe it’ll get a cool paint job this year, finally?!) Leaning up against the Milkhouse wall, there’s the original, square screen table (formerly used to sift gravel), and beside it, the new one I built last year—just add sawhorses… On the left, the pair of laundry tubs. Drainage pipes lie on the ground… First harvest can’t be far off!
Ah, SPRING!
Man, what a difference a day and a bunch of degrees can make! The temperature didn’t exactly shoot up, but it went from hovering around daytime zero, to around 10°C (50°F). This was one weather trend, predicted on the 15-day-forecast weather site, that I figured wouldn’t suddenly go south (it’s gotta warm up sometime), so I’ve been waiting for it, to the day, for a couple of days now. It’ll get steadily warmer for a week or so, than maybe drop a bit, but even if we get another BLIZZARD, the ground will have warmed up enough that new snow won’t be able to stick around for long. So, I do believe, SPRING IS HERE!!! I woke up to sunshine, and without even checking the temperature or confirming the forecast, set up a table outside the Milkhouse and out went the leek, onions and parsley for a little rapid hardening off. Getting them out to the greenhouse in a couple of days will free up a lot of rack space! Wandering around the field a bit, checking the melt-off’s progress, I poked around the edge of the Jerusalem artichoke bed. The ground was still fairly frozen, and had melted to clayey muck only in spots. Poking around in a soft spot at the base of one of the plants, I came up with a handful! First harvest! The tubers look beautiful, the ones in the front of the pic about marble size, the biggest in the back, like a golf ball. As seed stock, there’s going to be a ton from the 45 pieces planted last year. I didn’t end up harvesting any in the fall; now, I’ll get to for the first time eat ’em!
Seasonal salad
The first harvested dish of the year here usually comes from early lettuce, but not usually from lettuce still in plug sheets. With my ambitious early salad greens timing, and the way colder than hoped for weather, transplanting to the greenhouse was delayed by a couple of weeks, and the lettuce seedlings stayed in trays and went crazy. Today, I started thinning them heavily for the move, and ended up with a healthy portion of baby leaf salad! This is a mix of Simpson Elite, Granada, and Two Stars. The colors are still indoors pale, the taste and texture delicate. With a simple olive oil and lemon juice, salt and pepper dressing…delicious! And still a couple more bowls to go…
Tea and fungi
Chamomile tea prevents damping off—I’m a believer! It’s one of those natural but-do-they-really-work remedies, used where more product-minded folks would fork over a few bucks for a bottle of No-Damp fungicide… I brew up a batch of tea, dilute it by eye to a pale gold, and apply every couple of days with a fine-misting spray bottle. I’m pretty casual about the recipe, and keep spraying until the seedlings are established (that’s my method, there are more precise instructions around as well, search online).
Damping off is the name for a bunch of different fungal infections that can hit seedlings in trays with similar effect. In my encounters, the damage appears right below the soil line, strangling the stem just out of sight. Dig up a stricken seedling and there’s a small section of the stem, all pale and shriveling to nothing, while above and below, all looks well (the symptom’s called “wire stem”). It’s pretty shocking to see in action. One minute, your seedlings are looking all perky, and then you touch one…and it topples over! Whooaa!
Up to a couple of years back, I’d lose a few seedlings, usually PEPPERS for some reason, never anything major, parts of a tray or two, but enough to be scary. I seed-start in soilless mix (so it should be disease free), trays and tools are given a good disinfection at the beginning of the season, there’s always plenty of air circulation, and I make sure the soil surface doesn’t stay wet—all the things these soil-borne fungi don’t like. Still, damping off was sneaking in, until chamomile tea spray came along… Coincidence?