May Monthly: Main Season Preparations
Green Season is rolling along, warm season planting underway
And here we go again!
The CSA and the farm are just about as busy as it gets – a vital effort here at the farm is remediation of hay fields that are infested with invasive plants. Towards that end, the farm has been selling equipment that isn’t a priority need and has purchase old-school equipment, some of which is oh say about 70 years old but functional.
This (above) is a seeder – which was made in 1951… the trick with all this is to find good working examples for the bare minimum of money, which is always in short supply. We sell something, and we buy something. The good news is that we now are fully prepared to do the field work here in May.
The interesting and highly gratifying blessing is the weather – well, that and being able to keep the beaver dam breached, of course. The garden truly loves this early heat because it warms the soil. The “new” process in the garden has been to plow under the winter cover crop. It looks like a down -and- back with the ancient garden plow will make raised beds for us, and seriously displease the rodents, especially the voles.
The first few weeks of the main season will have mostly greens, of which there is an abundance. The tomatoes are being put into their final bed this week, and other crops will be heading out as we move along. The exciting thing at least from our point of view is that the long term forecast is excellent for melon production. Those seeds also get started in this week, which is very cool.
It looks like membership will be very low this year, which is probably helpful while we try and get the field remediation done. The thought here is to move our winter squash and pumpkins into an area along the driveway and open sales to pumpkin patch type buyers. The ground preparation is about half way done, and the hope is that those folks who ‘lurk’ on the Facebook group and/or read craiglist farm and garden will be interested. There are so many potatoes, corn and squash varieties that do so well in the September-October timeframe that this will be a means of not needing to compost good food.
Above: Pipsqueak pumpkins
Obviously, if you are interested in the 16 week main season we would love to hear from you – that said, main season starts the week of May 25th, which is only three weeks out. The ‘schedule’ at www.shilofarm.com shows the dates for the main season and the extended/fall season if you are interested. check out the frequently asked questions…
