Farm Report 8/23/23 - The Bounty is in

Farm Report 8/23/23 – The Bounty is in

Come celebrate the bounty at our 5th annual FARMYARD JAM on Saturday, September 16th! Read on!

What bounty, you say? Can there be too much of a good thing?

I knew we were going to be in trouble as Riley tended to her bean plot this summer. The plants are lush and full of blossoms, they have had very little insect pressure, and, of course, plenty of rain. Each bed has been treated differently with Riley’s kelp concoctions. We have not been able to determine if there is a clear winner yet in terms of yields.

So what’s the trouble?

It is taking up to 8 of us to harvest all this bounty! It’s very labor intensive to pick all these yummy beans, and we have 12 other crops to keep up with! I asked Cathy to send out a HELP! email on Thursday. Our four incredible interns have left us, many volunteers are on vacation, and many of our gleaner friends have left Maine to go back home. Even so, we were able to pick and send out over 1,400 pounds of fruits and vegetables this past week. The bounty has arrived!

Thanks to all of you who came to help on Friday–some of it in the pouring rain. Thanks to you, Riley, for coming back to help with the harvest twice this week. A couple of volunteers, like Jeff, left before this photo was taken. Thanks to you, too, Jeff!

As some of the crops are hanging in there, this difficult weather pattern has the tomatoes stressed to their limits. It’s clear which varieties do not handle these conditions at all. Brandywine and Black Krim are cracking and splitting. I also have noticed that the deep tomato summer flavors are missing this year, seemingly washed out. German Johnson and Arkansas Traveler seem to be the hardiest. Ox Heart, my favorite, also seems to be keeping up with its reliable heavy fruit and prolific production.

On top of this, we have had to pick the ripe fruits before our local murder of crows ruins them with sharp beaks. Darn crows.

Peppers are just not ripening! We need some warm sunshine! One weather forecaster announced that we have had one week of summer weather, and the second week is coming up. Let’s hope so.

We pulled all the onions before the next rain storm. They are curing in the seedling greenhouse. This was the original idea with this greenhouse space–to make it a multi-purpose building, and it is getting utilized in many ways. We’re SO grateful to have this covered dry space. The bouquet makers are grateful, too!

Elderberries are also coming in strong. Come pick this week! We have beautiful organic purple-black berry clusters ready for harvest. We are asking for a suggested donation of $15.00 a pound. This, of course, all goes to supporting Growing to Give. If you can’t make it to the farm to pick, I will have some frozen two- pound bags available.

Something is up with the red cabbages! They are simply not heading up. 🙁 I read about this problem, and this is what was suggested:

1) Not enough water. (NOPE!)

2) Temperatures too hot. (Not THIS summer!)

3) Too much nitrogen. (If this is the reason, why were the green cabbages fine?)

One suggestion was to remove all the lower leaves to send the energy into heading up, so this is what we did. Time will tell.

It’s so exciting to see our Fixers’ first seedling table. It has a set of wheels, which makes it extremely easy to move around. Now the plan is to build six more for next spring’s seed starting. Minutes after Bob inserted the last staple, it was full of tomatoes to ripen. Out of the way, Bob, there is a flat surface available!

We had some new helpers at the farm this week. Linda gave us a few hours of her vacation time, and Hannah, one of our board members, came to help glean. Thanks to both of you! Even though you both told me you know nothing about plants and gardening, your time was well appreciated.

We still can use extra help harvesting and getting in those end-of-the-season fall crops and cover crops.. If you have a friend or family member who you can entice to spend a little time with us, bring them along! We would appreciate it. Children are most welcome, too.

On Friday, Judy stopped by with her famous Strawberry Rhubarb crisp and provided Dylan his first taste of Swiss Chard. Thank you, Judy, for your special culinary treats.

We will celebrate all this bounty, beauty, and hard work with an afternoon of FUN at our 5th ANNUAL FARMYARD JAM on Saturday, September 16th. It is G2G’s biggest fundraiser, and we look forward to having our community gather to help us acknowledge all that we have accomplished together in 2023. We will continue with all our favorite activities, raffles, Wheel of Fortune, kids games, farm tours, food, and live music. SAVE THE DATE, buy some tickets, and join us in celebrating Growing to Give!