A simple snapshot of hand-weeding brassicas, and yet, a wealth of clues to how tiny farming is done in this market garden. Upfront, can see the weeding before-and-after: give them a few short days, and those weeds would easily catch up to the seedlings. The pulled weeds go around the plants or on the paths, where they do their bit in mulching, that helps keep new weeds from germinating. (Unfortunately, weeds often get bigger: more work, with the smaller tradeoff that they do a much better job as mulch.) Behind Casey, row cover, held down by big rocks that are carefully hoarded for just this use. Without the cover, flea beetles would have already gone to town, perforating the leaves with tiny holes. Further on, a critical water line, a 3/4″ hose off a 1″ pipe from the dug well pump. These are far from from a Big Ag diameters—they don’t deliver a firehose amount of water, but they do get the job done. Besides, there isn’t that much water in this well. The hose is lying on a trodden path, measured out at the beginning of the season to divide the field up into five-foot wide (1.5m), wide enough to take two rows of the bigger plants, like these broccoli and a cauliflower. The tradeoff is, comfortable hand-weeding is often done from both sides, to avoid lots of reaching across, while being a little less…efficient. And then there are open beds, with the clean look of fresh rototilling, ready for more seeding or transplanting. Casy’s fashion choices for fieldwear wouldn’t be mine: too much skin exposed to sun, insects, and spiky thistles—I gave up even shorts ages ago, for long sleeves and jeans—but to each their own. It’s all in the details!
Summer
Carrots front and center
Some of the veggies at today’s farmer’s market. The intense orange of rinsed off carrots tends to really pop, like some sort of neon beacon, especially in the flat light of overcast, grey days. Here they’re flanked by mixed bundles of curly, flat-leaf, and strap kale—the trifecta of kale—flat-leaf parsley, and…beets!
Salad kale!
Salad kale! Tiny, tender leaves, it’s our finest kale!! Production is simple: fast-growing Red Russian flat leaf kale is direct seeded, plants tightly crowded in-row, restricting growth and producing an abundance of baby leaves that keep coming back, week after week. I’ll try tightly seeding some other varieties, though I don’t expect they’ll do nearly as well, they don’t grow fast enough to make repeated harvests practical. We still transplant Red Russian and other kale varieties at our standard 18″ spacing, but end up taking more and more of this small stuff every week (first tried this direct seeding approach last fall). Calling it “salad kale” was kinda tongue-in-cheek (I think Ashley came up with it, or maybe it was me), some tiny farm marketing action that also happens to totally fit!
Early share
This week’s harvest basket, still greens, mainly: young curly and flat leaf kale, baby bok choi (autographed by a few flea beetles that made it under the cover), our Zippy Mix (today’s version, mustards as always, with mizuna and some baby Chinese cabbage), 4-lettuce mix (out of sight), plus garlic scapes and baby zucchini. Pretty simple. Not bad… We’re not doing CSA this year, but we do have a handful of share commitments!
Monster tomato leaf
It’s a monster tomato leaf. There’s not much in the pic to give it scale, but some of these leaves are around a foot long. Way bigger than I’ve seen before. This is the first year I’ve tried tomatoes in the greenhouse, throwing in about 25 leftover tom seedlings and a few eggplant to see how they do. So far, they’re just blowing up, way ahead of the pack in the open field, apparently loving the heat. Nice!
Basic BELT (bacon egg lettuce tomato)
More incredibly simple and tasty local food: the basic BELT – bacon egg lettuce tomato – all local except for salt, pepper, butter, and mayo. Bacon from the farmers’ market. Eggs and veg – heirloom tom, second cut baby lettuces and a smattering of arugula – from here. Organic 7-grain bread from a mid-size local indie bakery available at both farmers’ market and supermarket. When you have INGREDIENTS, everyone’s an instant chef!
Brassica greens galore
Brassica greens in perfect, flea beetle hole-free shape, thanks to good weather and…floating row cover. Rochelle is cutting mizuna—in the pic, there’s green and purple mustards, mizuna and tatsoi. Our extra focus on salad mixes this season continues to go over well, with a Mild Mix, Zesty Mix, and Mix of the Week, plus everything bagged individually. To fill the line-up, we have our own lettuce blend, the brassicas just mentioned plus arugula, all grown separately and as a mustards-mizuna-tatsoi mix (the tatsoi tends to be too small to easily cut in, so that’ll be out next round), spinach, and chard and beet greens (both grown tightly spaced). The greens harvest bin of choice this season is bushel baskets lined with a new clear bag each time (easy to toss into, hold a lot, the bags stay put even in wind and can be easily lifted out). Will be fun to expand the greens line-up and tweak the planting and harvest next year!