What a great past couple of weeks! We have accomplished the monumental planting of our tomato, eggplant and pepper crops! All 1,020 tomatoes are in and looking lovely! This task, of course, was preceded by the very dusty chore of moving the huge piece of Lumite into place – It is 24′ x 300′ long, dirty, and incredibly heavy! However, the pros of using huge weed-supressing fabric FAR outweigh the cons, that’s for sure. As you can see, the dogs were an incredible help (ha!), and we were able to drag, line up, and secure the fabric in place all in 2 hours or so – not too bad!
In other news, we have had amazing market weeks of late! Great weather, great crowds, and tons of plant sales to all those gardeners out there – our mixed 6-packs being the clear favorite this year. We really take pride in creating these 6-packs of tomatoes and peppers for gardeners that don’t have a ton of space for all of the same type of tomato or pepper. We carefully select several different varieties and sell them in a mixed pack to round out gardens with an inspiring bounty of uniqueness, utility, and deliciousness! We’re glad they are so well-received; we truly enjoy growing them and sending them off to good homes! We have also had a nice bounty of crops to bring to market – our custom heirloom salad mix, bordeaux spinach, baby arugula, microgreens, head lettuces, friseé, radishes galore and a surprise crop of mâche! It only gets better and better from here each week, everyone!
This past week we had our first Food Club pickup, which was so wonderful! It is a new tradition for us to have pickups at the farm instead of at the New North End Farmers’ Market (they’re taking a year off). We so thoroughly enjoy sharing our farm with visitors, and it means so much more when we get to give tours to our farm share members. What a pleasure to have members see the farm season in such a promising state – everything is planted and ready to grow – the favas are flowering, the potatoes are leafing, the onions are greening, and the tomatoes are establishing. Each week the farm takes on a new skin with all the growth that rain and sun bring. Each week we will get to see the changes and share in the deliciousness, my favorite part of farming!
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- Finally! A beautiful red radish!
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- Dogs being ever helpful!
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- Each bed gets 2 rows of drip tape.
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- Dragging out the Lumite for the tomato beds.
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- Spencer getting the stakes pounded in for our tomato trellis
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- Bordeaux spinach, a favorite
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- Bullet, hot and avoiding a bath on a 90 degree day.
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- Hot pepper crop waiting to be planted
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- Pepper crop in and looking happy!
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- Beautiful pepper – looks like a habanero, but with no heat
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- Hot pepper field – includes Spanish peppers and gorditas!
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- Cherry tomatoes getting huge!
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- Okra for Kitchen Table Bistro
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- Hot week = hand watering when needed!
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- Cherry tomatoes getting established
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- Finally, after much planning, the herb garden!
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- Gardens for Kitchen Table Bistro, Bluebird Tavern and one devoted to Slow Food USA’s Ark of Taste
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- Promise of feasting ahead!
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- Established after a week of growth, flowers and fruit abound!
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- Initial blossoms impotent and small – big ones next week!
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- The onion fields get greener as the bulbs swell
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- Getting bigger everyday – the potatoes sprout!
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- Cherry tomatoes established and fruiting!
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- Baby cherry tomatoes – not long now!
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- Favas in the sunlight – flowers and baby beans.
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- Garlic getting tall – scapes in a week!
This is such an awesome post! I love the tomato trellis information and the six pack variety plants are a wonderful idea. As a burgeoning spin farmer in Idaho…I appreciate the tips and wonderful insight.
Half-pint: Save me a bushel of gorditas. It’s looking good in the field. Tom and I are thinking of a late summer early fall trip to see you all and do the pick-up.
Yee ha! Can hardly wait. Half-pint groupie!
Kathy
Here here! So psyched about that herb garden!!!! It just all looks so DAMN FINE!
Thanks for the work walk-through. Website and farm site are both good. I do check The Piste and like Spencer’s musings. If I didn’t know better I’d think he was smoking something funny, but I know he just lives in that comtemplative space anyway. I enjoy the other links as well.
Hello all! Thanks for the great comments!
Heather Jane: So glad the tomato trellis info is helpful! It is such a great system, you’ll love it! Also, the 6-packs are indeed a good idea!
Kathy & Tom: we would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to see you late summer! You name the date!
Jess: the herbs are growing by leaps and bounds, you won’t believe it when you pick up your share this week!
Charley: Thanks for the feedback! The Piste is indeed all about Spencer’s contemplative space. Glad you enjoy the links page!
Mara
Thank you so much for the info on the tomato trellising system. I have been wanting to try it at my farm. How far apart are the posts, and what gage is the wire that you use? Thanks again for sharing all that you do, you are truly an inspiration!
Hi Debbie!
The posts are placed every 10 feet, and the wire we use is whatever 1/4 mile wire is – I think it is 17 gauge. Good luck! Check the post from last year as well – there’s some more specific pictures of the duckbill anchors. Hope this helps! Thanks for posting a comment!
Also forgot to ask: what are the posts made of, oak, pine?
They are just regular 2x4s from Lowe’s – probably pine. We’re not too worried about them degrading too much – the old ones were purchased in 2005, and have been used outside all those years – we’re still using them, though inside now; probably prolonging their life further. The new 2x4s are 8 footers. Here’s the old post with more descriptive pictures: http://halfpintfarm.com/blog/rhythm-of-the-season-weather-feasting/
Let me know if you have any other questions!
Thanks, Mara. Just one more question, I think! Do you suppose that one could use metal “T” posts, instead of 2×4’s? I have a lot of metal posts, I guess the problem would be keeping the wire at the top of the post, wouldn’t it. (I think I answered my own question!) Thanks, again for all your help. I looked at last year’s blog post again, and now I understand how a duckbill anchor works!
Hi Debbie. I think you could use metal posts – you’d just have to rig some sort of fitting on the top – maybe 2 short 2x4s (like 1 foot long) that have been screwed together, sandwiching the t-post between them, then stringing the wire across the top of the little 2x4s – now it’ll really look like a telegraph pole! Good luck to you – I hope it works and that you have a super-fruitful tomato year!
Your hard work is rewarded.
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