Farmer Kurt’s Field Notes June 15, 2024
A double rainbow. We took this as a good omen.
Well howdy everyone! It’s the official start to our main season. A big welcome back to all our CSA customers, and another big welcome to all our NEW customers who are with us for the first time. I’ve always said that farming is in my blood. It’s a calling for me, and so it is truly my privilege to be growing your food for you.
The farm looks absolutely beautiful right now. And a lot of that is due to good weather windows and an awesome staff. A few weeks ago, when our area got all those heavy rain storms, we somehow missed the worst of it. The clouds parted around our farm as the system passed through. That allowed our soil to stay dry enough that I could get my seedlings in the ground. And we are now reaping the benefits of that timing.
We welcome back our production crew: Noah, John, Jose, Pedro, Asuncion, and Juan. Juan is the son of Polo (one of our growers for the last 3 years). This crew of 6 has been working long, hard days to get your food into the ground. This time of year, it’s not strange to clock 50-60 hour work weeks. It’s not always that intense, but when the weather is good and it’s time to seed, we take advantage of it!
We’ve transplanted eggplant, tomatoes, basil, melons, cucumbers, zucchini, celery, celery root, fennel, and well over an acre of peppers. The last two are for our big wholesale accounts with the Ohio Food Banks and Whole Foods. If you’ve never seen a crew run a transplanter before, it’s quite a process. First, me or Glen will prep/finish the bed row, and fluff it up so it’s nice and ready for planting. (This also removes the weeds). Then if necessary, the crew will make a second pass with a tractor and cover the bed with plastic mulch and drip tape for irrigation. Then they make another pass over the covered bed with the transplanter unit, which pokes holes at set intervals in the plastic. My crew drops a plant into the hole, a water wheel gives it a douse of water, and then it’s covered with a shovel of dirt.
We also planted sweet potatoes! These seedlings come in the form of stems — called “slips.” I buy these in from a supplier. We plant these root side down into the dirt. Some of the seedlings don’t have roots yet, but they’ll root out real quick, and start forming vines on the bed. We know they’re ready to harvest when the vines dry out and die back — usually in late September. Seems crazy to think we have to plant these so early, right?!
Asparagus is ferning out
My asparagus field is ferning out. I had my crew go in and remove all the weeds and thistle. Then Jed went in and seeded a cover crop. This will grow in with the asparagus and choke out any weeds that try to grow in that space. AND they’ll add nutrients to the soil.
Tomatoes growing in our high tunnel. These will be “earlier” than usual.
The high tunnels look amazing. They are all currently holding early tomatoes. Because I was able to plant them in this protected (warmer) zone much earlier than normal, I’m going to have a TON of tomatoes coming on earlier than usual. You know what they say about “early to market…” They’re also free of disease because the covering keeps the rain from splattering up on the underside of the leaves. Instead I can water using the drip irrigation.
Jose picks peas
Noah and John are in charge of my garden beds around the barn and house. These hold most of the herbs, lettuces, and snap peas. They are also in charge of manning the greenhouse and keeping things watered. They’ve done a good job with the lettuce, although I do have to go hunting for rabbits every day. This year the bunnies are bad, and we’ve lost more than our fair share of lettuce to those critters.
It’s going to be VERY hot for 5 days in a row this next week. I’m a little concerned about it. We don’t normally see such high temps for so long this early in the year. My baby transplants out in the field are still pretty young to be getting hit with such heat and dryness. As a result, my highest priority is getting my irrigation system set up this weekend, so we can protect those new transplants with cooling water. Setting up this maze of hoses and connectors and pipes is no small task. Luckily, I trained my crew last year on how to do this, so in theory, it should go a lot faster now that I have some experienced guys here to help.
Josiah celebrated his 13th birthday last week. He’s now a teenager! We are so proud of him. He has been showing some interest in engineering the last year. He likes to read a book called “Engines” which is a very technical book on our coffee table. I think he’s read it 10 times. But I see him playing off his brother’s interest in aviation — but he’s more into designing his own planes. Corinna and I are starting to think about moving him into an engineering track in school, and we’ve mentioned the word “TTA.” (Toledo Technical Academy). This would mean another 2 year commitment of driving our son to and from school (twice a day). But I figure we did it with Jed, and we can do it with Josiah.
With just 3 days to do until start date, I’m a little behind on two of my big projects. One of them was to secure a lift gate for our big box truck. This will make our loading and unloading process at the large pickup sites so much easier and faster. Unfortunately, I waited too long on this, and let other things take priority. I’ve been looking on Facebook marketplace — even drove all the way to Michigan to get one, but it turned out to be a dud. Once I find one, it shouldn’t take Glen too long to get it installed on our truck. They pop up on FB marketplace pretty regularly. We’ll see.
I’m also working on installing a new cooler inside my barn. If you’ve been watching our FB page, you know that we recently spent a lot of money to pour concrete pads inside our barn. I’m trying to create a cooler area that can store our fruit share and Elmore CSA shares. Eventually I want to get rid of the cooler next to my garage. Instead of buying a unit, I’m actually framing a space and then insulating it with spray foam. We’re also going to build some stairs so we can access the upper level of my barn. I don’t utilize all that space very well, and so if I can get up there more easily and safely, I’d be storing more things up there.
Jed has a pretty sweet summer job working for William Hirzel, helping him restore old airplanes. What an amazing opportunity for him to learn from a true master and practice his craft. He loves going to work and is often gone 30 hours a week. Unfortunately that means he isn’t here, helping me with the farm. I’ve come to rely on him to do quite a bit of my tractor field work. But I wouldn’t change it. He’s following his dream, and I’m so excited for him. At least he’s eager to work now! Must be the fact that we won’t let him drive that new car of his until he finishes paying off our loan.
Corinna has been slowly healing from her bad case of acid reflux. It’s been a tough time for all of us, having our “mommy” down and out for so long. She’s been on a pretty strict low acid diet and recovery protocol and it’s working. I’m proud of her. It’s hard to say when she’ll be fully recovered. It could be another month, or it could be til Christmas. I bring it up because you may notice that she isn’t as talkative or as active as usual at her pickup site. That’s because the reflux has gotten in her throat, and has affected her voicebox. Talking is straining for her. So go easy on her! She’s a trooper. She keeps telling me, “When I beat this, I’m going to help people who have this beat it.”
Knowing my wife, I’m sure she will.
Be sure to check out our online store this week! I’m loading in some snap peas in case you want to add them to your share. I didn’t have enough for everyone, but they are so tasty. Corinna wants me to remind you that if you want to order from the store this year, it always opens by noon on Saturdays. Your deadline to order depends on which pickup day you choose. You can see the details on the store website. But I think it’s 6 AM Monday for Tuesday pickup, and 6 am Wednesday for a Thursday pickup.