Summer begins in earnest!

After the cold and damp spring, the recent heat wave has felt like a blast furnace. I've been inside in a cushy air-conditioned office job while everyone else has been doing the work. The seedlings were moved out of the greenhouse about a week and a half ago, to harden them up and slow them down. Some of them were getting very tall and overgrown for their soil pots. (Here's what needs to be planted next: cabbage, basil, zucchini, cucumbers, and more.)
Last Monday, Roger, dad, and mom got plastic mulch laid. Dad and Roger drove the tractors while mom followed on foot keeping the plastic on track, letting them know if irrigation tape ran out, and starting and ending rows of mulch. The plastic was for the peppers, tomatoes, and most of the lettuce ... about 1.25 miles, which mom walked twice! On Tuesday, they planted the second patch of lettuce with 10 different varieties, nearly 500 plants. (Here's the lettuce, with the tomatoes beyond.) It was sprinkling the whole time, but not really raining. Next they planted tomatoes--1,800 plants. After mom and dad did the first 3 rows Aunt Laurie helped with the rest, 9 more rows. Thunder cracked just as they finished, and rain poured down. From Tuesday 3pm until Thursday noon we received nearly 2 inches.

Wednesday they did lots of work in the greenhouse: planted seeds for the late cole crop, transplanted late tomatoes, planted pumpkin and winter squash seeds, transplanted yet another planting of lettuce, and moved most of the remaining plants outdoors. (Here's the squash and pumpkins just beginning to sprout in the greenhouse.)
Saturday morning I finally was around when planting was going on and we got all of the peppers and eggplant in. Roger drove the tractor, mom and I rode, and dad walked behind to fix the ones we miss. We got the 4,000 peppers planted in about 4 1/2 hours. (Here's a row of eggplant with pepper rows on either side.) The planting itself took less time than driving back to the greenhouse for more plants and filling the planter with water. It was plenty hot by the time we were done, but so far they seem to be doing well and have not died from shock.

Today, mom went to Coraopolis market with lettuce. (Here's the lettuce in the field--nearly ready to be picked.) It was the first market of the year, and sure was hot for her in town.

Today dad told me that there are different ways to mark summer--the summer solstice on June 21st is the one most people know, but there is also the meteorological summer which has already begun, and another designation of summer that I can't remember at the moment. For me, though, summer is when it's still light and warm at 9pm, when markets begin, and when we eat the first produce from the garden. Happy summer, everyone!
Note to family: If you experienced deja vu while reading this blog, it's because I edited mom's email from earlier this week for much of this update.

Cold and wet spring

I haven't been posting much this spring, but dad hasn't volunteered to use his retirement to take over blogging, so I had better start updating again. It's been cold and wet lately, so we haven't gotten much in the ground. In fact, the peppers and tomatoes are getting so big in the greenhouse that we may have to prune them before getting a chance to plant them.
The greenhouse is crowded with other things too: small lettuces, basil and other herbs, zucchini and cucumbers, cabbages, and a few flowers. The bigger lettuces and cabbages have been put outside to conserve space and to keep them from wilting on the sunniest days.Despite the wet weather, a few things are in the ground. Here's the first batch of lettuce planted by hand because the slope is rather steep for the transplanter to run well on. Above it you might make out the blue-green stalks of garlic among the weeds. The plan is to harvest this lettuce as soon as it is ready, because this is the flower garden, and the holes in the plastic will be planted with zinnias, marigolds, and sunflowers once the lettuce is cut.
Dad's put a few more plantings of corn in. The first ones are up several inches now, and you can see that they were planted in rows when you look across those patches--it's not just a few scattered sprouts that might be blades of grass any longer. Here's the corn planter; one of the few pieces of equipment that is John Deere green, since Dad is generally a Case equipment man.One final picture for this post. Can you identify the vegetables growing below? (Hint: click on the image for a larger view.)I'll post the answer in the comments.

"Buckeye" tree blown down

Two weeks ago, mom and dad woke up to find that a quarter of the "buckeye" tree had blown down overnight. They were fortunate that it had fallen away from the house.It tore down the wires from the pole that carries electric to the barn, wagon shed, and other farm buildings. The power line on the road was pulled to be over the middle of the road. You might be able to see how much they are distant from the phone lines in the picture below--it's very faint.After Dusquene Light came and fixed the wires, they cut and stacked wood and put the brush on the wagon to haul away. The tree will have to come down.We've always called this the "buckeye" tree, but it is a really a horse chestnut Aesculus hippocastatum. This venerable tree grew from a buckeye (or chestnut to be particular) that grandma brought from a tree near her house in Beaver when they moved out to the farm.

It was badly damaged in a storm, so her father took a chain and pulled the split trunk together. The trunk healed around the chain, so that just the ends stuck out from the trunk. You can still see one end where four links hang down, and you might be able to discern the other end of the chain in the rotted part of the trunk.

Busy month

post by Phil

Well it's been over a month since anything has been posted on our blog. Kate seems to have taken a break from posting and tells Becky and I we have to post something. This is a busy time and a lot has been going on. At the end of March I retired from my 'real job' at Penn State Beaver and am now a full time farmer.

It is hard work.Well it is not quite that easy.

We have removed all the plastic mulch and drip tape from last year's crop from the fields (over 2 miles of mulch)! Thanks Sue, Laurie, and Becky.

We've done more seeding and transplanting in the greenhouse.

The seeds sprouted in the germination chamber.

Then the plug trays (288 cells in a standard 11" X 22" flat) were moved to the benches

The tiny plants continue to grow in the "288s".

Once the plants get 'true leaves' they are transplanted into 48s (48 cells per flat).

So now the greenhouse is pretty full with pepper, tomato, cabbage, onion, eggplant, and lettuce plants.

The plants will continue to grow in the 48s until ready to be planted outside.

For those interested in our lettuces they are doing fine. The first harvest should be around the beginning of June!

Other tasks that have been done and are ongoing are:

Repaired the manure spreader

Hauled manure

Plowed and finished the first sweet corn ground.

And yesterday planted the first sweet corn of the year!!

I always try to plant sweet corn by April 26 (my mother's birthday) and the first is ready to pick by July 18 (Laurie's birthday) or sooner.

This past week the weather has even been good enough for me to get started on my tan!Farmer's tan that is!

Life is good when you're having fun!! Til next time see ya.

disclaimers: Not all pictures were taken this year but all pictures were taken on our farm. No farmers were harmed during this blog.

SPRING, well maybe

Spring has sprung, well according to the calendar anyway. You wouldn't know it by the temperatures. Nice and sunny today but cold. The greenhouse was started last Saturday with peppers, eggplant and onions. About 6000 seeds planted and put into our germination chamber.
Onions were popping up in 3 days, eggplant in 5 and, amazingly, some of the peppers by 6 days.
--PhilFriday was a nice sunny day. The greenhouse was close 100 degrees! Since I had the day off, I spent some time reading in the warmth--with the door open to cool it down a little.
--Katie

Spring is coming ...

... kind of. Kate made this summery butterfly in the wet snow last Friday. Monday temps hit 70. Tuesday it poured. Poorhouse Run was full to its banks with muddy rushing water and walking thru the fields was not an option. Thursday the sun shone bright and I enjoyed an hour in a friend's hot tub gazing up at the blue sky. Today, Friday, we are in another winter weather advisory with freezing temperatures and snow and sleet and rain. One evening as he brought in the mail, Phil was singing. A box of seeds had arrived! Except for a few back-orders, we have most of the seeds we need.
The luffas harvested last fall were immature. They rotted rather than drying. These were found in the field recently, looking like the upper one; the thin shell was peeled off to reveal the useful interior fibers.
-Becky

Snowy days

We're not doing much in the fields right now other than taking the dog for walks. For the past few weeks they have either been covered in snow and frozen, or very muddy. I hope the fickle weather is luring some bugs out just to be zapped in the next cold spell!
Last week mom and dad inventoried seeds and placed orders for what we need. In the winter it is easy to get carried away by the pictures in catalogs, and they discuss how many more or less tomatoes to grow and whether it will be worth trying a new variety of zucchini. (Mom says: "I've tried almost every kind of zucchini that there is, and Spineless Beauty is still the best.") A few packets of seeds were 4 or 5 years old, so they tested it to see if an acceptible percentage would still germinate. These radish seeds (which were donated from customers, but don't really have time for) are still viable, but the pumpkins and gourds haven't sprouted yet.

On January 26, we had the first annual farm dinner at Vesuvio's new restraunt for the people who contribute to the farm in the summer. These neighbors, family, and market friends make what we do in the summer possible, and it was nice to see them in the winter. Including spouses, twenty-three people attended. Vesuvio's has its own farm connection; in the summer they use lots of our "ripe and ready" tomatoes in salads and sauses.