Planting Chard, Carrots and Lettuce

I planted on a day when we expected rain. 

Well, the rain never arrived.  So today, I watered this first bed of 140 feet.  Last year this bed held potatoes, but in practicing crop rotation, I have put the potatoes far away in hopes of deterring pests and disease.

At the top of the bed, is lettuce mix under some shade that will be picked at the end of June.  While in the middle you will find carrots, they may be ready in the beginning of July.  The chard will be ready in late June or early July.  Most of my planting has been started in the greenhouse, more about that later. 

Planting Potatoes with Help from Family and Friends

Jude and Kamal planting French Fingerlings before the rain starts again.

In between the raindrops,we got most of the potatoes in the ground this weekend.  I still have some Russian Bananas to plant.

French Fingerling Smoked Paprika and Gouda frittata

  Above is lunch for Sunday's help.  Luckily for us, some of the fingerlings did not sprout (hence not good seed) so we ate them. 

Five double rows completed.

The field is still wet so we could not use the rototiller.  All was done by human power.  I was dreaming of a draft horse or an ox to help us with this. 

Growing Seedlings Makes the Local Paper

I started the summer crops in the Community Gardens Greenhouse in Lowell.  Working with a team of volunteers and our park liaison, Deb, this will be our last year to use the site.  We were featured in the Lowell Sun today: newspaper article

Harvesting Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes still flowering on day of harvest

Well, it was a beautiful weekend with great days to harvest sweet potatoes.  They look good-- many gigantic!  Even more pleasing is the pest that plagued the fingerling potatoes is less evident on the sweet potatoes. 

Kamal holding a group of sweet potatoes

 Saturday's work was harvesting 1/2 the bed.  Now onto Sunday's work to finish up. 

Uncovering the sweet potatoes is half the battle, as it were

Sweet potatoes like sandy soil.  Thank goodness for me that they grew well in compacted soil.  In growing guides, it was suggested to play with the spacing of the plants.  Those that I spaced closer together went deeper. 

Might look like this.

All and all growing these was a delightful surprise. 

A Tale of Two Fields

Part of the field still in hay, gathered for baling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  A long-term goal of mine is to lease land for an extended period to learn the land, to steward it and to increase its capabilities.  Currently, I have one more year at this site.  As this season plays out, my observations have turned from theory to confirmation.  Thankfully, I have two fields if one crop does not work as well in one place later, I can try it somewhere else.

Carrots from the lower field

Carrots from the upper field

 It's not just the camera perspective.  The upper field carrots are lush and create a canopy to smother weeds.  While the lower field carrots took so long to grow, I seeded carrots wherever I could in the upper field to make sure that we had carrots.  They've done so well; now I really have carrots.

Chard in the lower field

Upper field chard

 Ah, well, the chard presents a few problems: like, maybe the biodegradable black mulch was too much, this hot summer?  I have less chard in the upper field and just as it got big and sturdy, I found goldfinches landing on it and taking bites while there!

Collards in the lower field

Collards in the upper field

 If you could not see a difference between fields with the carrots and chard, it may be easier here.  I have a hunch that the soil is compacted in the lower field; thereby, making it harder for the roots to penetrate and the plant to flourish.  My mulching did not help either.  Now, we are turning to cooler weather and these crops prefer it.  We'll see.

Height of the Season Leaves No Time to Cook

How I am preserving the harvest for later

Now, in the height of the season, I have no time to prepare (and sometimes eat) the luscious vegetables.  With all the outdoor activities that summer allows, I bet you have little time too. Thankfully, with the help of many bloggers, food writers, newspapers and university sites, there's much information on preserving the harvest.  

Various vegetable quick pickles from the fridge

Using ideas from Martha Rose Shulman  quick pickles link and various pickling books, Kamal pickled cucumbers and onions with pickling spice in cider vinegar.  I pickled beets in white vinegar and roasted peppers in oil when cool I put them in a jar with vinegar. 

Lemon basil drying

If I don't use the herbs right away, they are put in a glass of water in the fridge with a plastic bag wrapped around them.  If I know that I won't use them in a few days, I dry them anywhere and everywhere.  Fresh herbs are especially expensive in the winter and dried ones are not that cheap either.

Genovese basil drying in the stairwell

Because I grow them and I can, I use hot peppers in everything.  Kamal gently chided me as I ruined (word and emphasis mine) the subtlety of a gratin. I like my bold flavors.  These are drying on the counter - waiting to dry more and then be put away and crushed or ground with a mortar and pestle for later dishes.

Various hot peppers

I freeze the hot peppers, too.  In the winter, one Hot Paper Lanterns really spices up a dal or rice and beans.

Cooked down green tomatoes

We had some green tomatoes and we blanched them and put them through a food mill to remove the skins.  I have been using this cooked down sauce as body for salsa.  Add lime, garlic and a fresh red tomato, to the green tomatoes and it's a tasty salsa.

Frozen roasted tomatoes in oil

I roasted the tomatoes to be used later to add depth to a soup or sauce.  The simplest way was from Smitten Kitchen.  You may want to adjust how long you roast them.   I found the juicer heirlooms to take longer - five to six hours at 225 F.

Preserving through freezing

I blanched beet greens and chard. Here's a detailed description on blanching from H. Sawtelle.  Then, I froze the blanched greens.  The other item shown is frozen cherry tomatoes. 

Raw carrots

To prove my point, there's the carrots from last week that I must pickle with hot pepper, sesame oil and rice vinegar. 

What Vegetable Farmers' Dread - Late Blight

Black Krim tomatoes  in the field with signs of Late Blight

Ah,  my tomatoes are loaded on the vine.  I happily walk down the rows counting the bounty, dreaming of canning, and eating fresh tomato sauce.  I actually long for the sign of eating too many tomatoes - canker sores in my mouth.  I love eating and cooking with fresh tomatoes.  Alas, just as some are starting ripen and what do I see but brown crispy leaves near the bottom of the plant.  (I have been trellising the tomatoes and often I break a branch or two and the leafhopper with it's hopperburn has affected so many crops.)  However, our farm manager, Matt, points it out and says that he thinks it is Late Blight.  As he says it, I know.  I have seen it before.  Brown on the stems and leaves, that moves up the plant and onto the fruit.  Not all the plants have it just a section of the 450 plants.  Although if I do not get the affected plants out of the field, it will spread throughout and beyond.

Fruit removed and plants to be put out with the trash

This cloudy, moist, humid weather is conducive to the fungus spreading.  My spraying of copper helped in that the whole field is not affected.

So, instead of harvesting ripe, luscious tomatoes, I am pulling the green fruit off and stuffing the plant into contractor- garbage bags to put in the trash at home.  Also, I remove the stakes and twine and set the pile aside to bring to the house for burning.  This is the last thing, I had hoped to be doing.  Thus far, I have removed 52 plants. 

What the rows look like on August 1

What does this mean for my CSA shareholders?  ...Sadly, less tomatoes and less variety.  I was growing Pink Beauty, San Marzano and the heirlooms of a Rose Brandywine, Black Krim, Red Pear Piriform, orange-colored Nepal and Cherokee Purple.  As a backup, I grew one variety of 36 plants that is Late-Blight-resistant and the cherry tomatoes may have some resistance.   We shall see.