Wild Ride

It's been a crazy few weeks down at the Intervale, and probably around most of the state, as far as agriculture goes.  It finally feels like things are starting to even out and normalize.  We (Jeremy, Jamie, and I) have been hoeing and re-hoeing things.  The soil is just so saturated with water that it is taking a few passes to kill most of the weeds, but kill them we shall.  It finally looks like we are not too far away from our first radishes, turnips, head lettuce and lettuce mix.  That plus beet greens and garlic scapes are looking like early staples this year.  We just put in our new chard, the first time I have ever grown it from plugs and in three rows, as opposed to direct seeding (the seeds go into the ground) and in two rows. 

That seems to be a theme so far this year.  Doing things in a different way that may in fact be better, and make us a significantly better farm over the next few years.  Other examples, you inquire.  Well, we put in an electric deer fence, something I normally wouldn't have thought we had time for but in the weird schedule of this year we do.  I'm hoping this means an extra planting of lettuce in the fall and no eaten winter squash (we would normally lose 10% or more of that and the melons), and also unmolested beans and fall carrots and beets.  We are also moving the hearb circle to higher ground and actually making it into a circle instead of rectangle.  Probably most exciting is the 150 asparagus plants which are doing fine.  If we could get two or three weeks of asparagus next year (it then increases about a week a year of harvesting I think) wouldn't that be sweet.

The first cosmos and zinnias are flowering, so come and get them.