We’ll have choices from the following veggies this week for CSA;
lettuce, spinach, chard, kale, broccoli, broccolini, cabbage, onion, carrots, beets, cucumber, zucchini, tomato, beans, dill, cilantro, parsley, basil, green onion.
On the farm this week:
We kind of got our first rain of the season! I say ‘kind of’ because it was only 4/10 “, which, when you haven’t had rain for 3 months, doesn’t really count. But I did take advantage of the overcast weekend to run the sprinklers In fact our ground is so dry that I ran the sprinklers on our potatoes all weekend. But then today when I stuck my hand into them – they were still dry!! Even after our ‘rain’ you can still see big cracks in the ground like in this picture.
One interesting fact about rain that I did not know until recently is that it has a ph of 5- 5.5. On the other hand my well water has a ph of 8. This means that rain water is nearly 1000x more acidic than my well water! Because of it’s ph, rain water a more preferable source of water compared to well water. That and it it saves me from having to water.
One experiment I’ve been doing this year with our irrigation water is that I’ve been injecting sulfuric acid into it to neutralize bicarbonates and lower ph to 6 from 8. In theory this should increase solubility of certain nutrients like calcium, iron, manganese. I’ll be testing the plant sap and soil in Aug to see what the effect was compared to the sections irrigation without acid. Here’s Sandra in our unheated tunnel that is getting acid injected into the water. Our unheated tunnel tomatoes are starting to ripen now also, so we are entering tomato season!
And finally, after that ‘rain’ our last winter crop to be seeded has germinated. Not long ago this was peas and now it’s beets and the grassy pathway is clover and ryegrass. The problem with seeding into old peas is sometimes the peas we missed picking can become a serious weed problem. but I don’t see any yet, so hopefully we didn’t miss too many.
That’s it for this week. See you soon!
Jonathan, Sarah, Sandra, Morgan, Alyssa, Shola, Emerson, and Barb.