August…

It’s been an interesting summer, hasn’t it? We entered the season with record low soil moisture. That’s not something reported in mainstream weather reports, but it’s one of the most important considerations in agriculture. Irrigation is only successful if roots have access to the water being laid-down, and roots will only grow if the soil is wet where they are headed. That means that the soil below the roots must be moist enough to encourage active root growth. This summer, we started in May with active soil moisture down several feet. That means that several feet of irrigation have to happen before roots will penetrate to any meaningful depth. And that has been incredibly difficult this year.

Even though the air temperature has been cooler than in the last few years (haven’t hit 100° yet, knock on wood and fingers crossed!) but we also had much less precipitation in the winter. So, yay, no flooding, but boo, no residual soil moisture. Now, in August, we are finally starting to reach that soil moisture equilibrium in some parts of the farm, which is great for all the fall and winter planting happening in the next two weeks. But it also means that my July water bill is $2,000, something I don’t generally expect until September. So that was a shock, and my bank account is nearly empty. (Some farmers have mentioned water surcharges to help cover that unexpected expense…)

These concepts are important to understand, because that lack of root growth is why we haven’t had many greens, but the cucumbers and squash and (finally) the potatoes are happy. Leafy greens and herbs need a lot of water. But the beans are coming on, and I’ve managed to nurse along a late crop of sugarsnaps (to make up for the destruction by evil bunnies in the spring). Peppers and tomatoes are loaded with fruits and ripening. And hopefully the next big patch of lettuce and spinach will do better.

All of this wouldn’t be possible without a large underground plumbing project we installed in June to deliver more water to the fields (you may remember the trenches and backhoe). We might not have had anything to harvest if not for that $5,000 investment.

The fall and winter Brassicas are growing strong, lots of Broccoli and Cauliflower coming starting in October. Fall greens and roots are getting seeded today, as well as winter greenhouse greens. The days are getting shorter (thankfully!) which means the clock is ticking: we have just 2-3 weeks to get all of the seeding done for the rest of the year. Due to shorter days, plants don’t make significant growth after the end of September/early October, so we need to get everything as large as possible by that time.

August burnout is upon us, but we just have to push through and hope the new crew stick around to the end of it! The rest and calm of winter is coming.

And a heads-up: Della has been living here, doing an internship for summer, but is moving to Southern California to be with her new husband in early September. I’ll be going with her in my van, so will be away September 7-13. I don’t have anyone to do deliveries for me, so I need to figure out how we’ll handle that. I will likely split the missed week between the week before and after, but we’ll see how things look at the end of August. Just make a note that there will likely be no delivery/pick up that week.

And one more thing: I am not renewing my contract with Barn2Door, so you will be getting one last notification from them about that this week. I have all of your contact information saved , so in the future you’ll just get notifications from me directly. No more confusing crossed emails.

Cutflowers

The U-Pick Cutflower Garden is open to everyone on Tuesdays 2-7 and Saturdays all day. If you need to visit on another day, please let me know. Those are the CSA pickup days, and I’m already expecting lots of people wandering about. I need the other days for growing and working. There are pitchers and snips for you to use in the CSA shed. Just return them when you’re done!

With much gratitude,

Shelley