foxlinecityfarm

Getting set for more carrots…..

Just a bit of rain but we’ll take it!  It is DRY!!! 50,000 gallons of water went on the garden in the month of May. We have been irrigating around the clock in this dry windy heat, and have been providing shade for the broccoli.

I feel like we are over the hump of “getting everything in”.  The last of the pie pumpkins and winter squash went out last week and the watermelon patch is set!!!  Feels really good that the green house is emptying out and we have started some new seeds for 2nd and 3rd rotations of many crops.  We have 2 plantings of beets in the ground now for several weeks and a 3rd rotation of 4 varieties all started. More of the smaller cabbage is started as well as the big winter storage varieties…. I started our 5th planting of lettuce yesterday all strong heat tolerant varieties.  We were very sad that all the buttercrunch bolted in the heat and we pulled more than 200 heads out and to the compost.  Yesterday, Malachi Persche cleaned out the Spinach bed after our last harvest for the season and Scott quickly prepped it for carrots.  The radish bed was cleared yesterday also to make way for more lettuces.

The tomato plants seem to grow several inches over night-every night!! and are beautiful and strong.  We have been picking off the first blossoms in order to give the plants a chance to settle in rather than use all their energy to make a wimpy tomato.  We put in 124 tomato plants this year and as usual I am excited to taste our old favorites and also experiment with a few new varieties.  Really looking forward to canning a bit more too this year now that Maeve is older.  There is nothing better than homemade catchup and tomato juice…..

I think the phrase for this season will be “things are really early”…..we have summer squash forming and perhaps a few to eat next week and the bean plants have blossoms.  Crazy!  Blueberries are coloring up and the blackcap berries are almost black.  I have a photo of Scott and Maeve picking blackcaps last year on the 4th of July.  The cool weather Spring crops have passed way too quickly but the heat loving summer crops are developing quickly.