Week 3

Good bye gloomy weather; hello sunny, warm weekend! Hopefully, the forecast will hold and we will have some nicer weather for Saturday. It's been busy around the farm lately, plus all the end of year school activities and trying to fit a holiday weekend or vacation into the mix--there just isn't enough time.

Bill and Carson are taking off for a much needed fishing holiday on Friday and some of our staff had other plans (can you believe it?), so Allie and I will be holding down the stand on Saturday. Our oldest, Kyle, is here for a bit, so maybe I can talk him into coming down, too. He and his family are moving from North Carolina to Arizona, so we get to enjoy them for a few weeks. Kyle got a new job in the Marine Corps and that entailed a move--but better than going back to Iraq! We're glad to have him here for a while.

We will have some of the best lettuce that I think we've ever grown. The cool, wet weather mixed with just the right amount of sun is just what you need to grow MASSIVE heads of lettuce! Plus, you just can't beat all the different shades of green of all the varieties of lettuce that we have this year: the light spring green of the leaf lettuce and Green Oak leaf, the intense green of Truckee, the bright red to burgundy of Red Oak Leaf and Red Sails to the deep green of the spinach and arugula. Plus, you can mix them all together for a dynamite salad!


Before Bill felt as if he could head up to the Great White North for some R&R, he had to get about 3,000 melons in the ground. Not only did he have to get them in the ground, but they had to be covered to protect them from the wind. Because we have the best crew ever, all this work was accomplished in the window of time between 4 & 8 pm....those guys rock!

The picture to the right shows some of the rows of cantaloupe & watermelon at the Manito farm. The rows go all....the....way.....back to the top of the hill. It's a long way back there. What's on the other side of the hill? Glad you asked!



It's where the sweet corn is at! This is taken about 1/4 of the way from the start of the field......no kidding, these rows are long! This is the first crop of corn that finally got planted in late April. Sadly, all the spring rains have really done for farmers is to put them WAY behind in their planting schedules. Luckily for us, we have some rolling ground and it is sandy, so unless there is a monsoon, we can usually find some dry spot to plant.

We've switched it up this year and moved some of our crops down to the Manito farm from the main homestead. We had run out of places to rotate our crops without putting something back where it was just a year or two ago. Plus, it was VERY rainy last year and we fought flooded areas and disease constantly. This year, we didn't want to take a chance with too much rain (we look pretty smart now, don't we?) so the tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, squashes and eggplant are now growing in Mason county soil. The Manito farm is only about 2 miles south of the main farm and its where the corn is at, so not much of an adjustment for us.

This week, we are still celebrating all things leafy and green with lots of lettuce. I'll be manning the stand on Saturday, along with Allie (best helper ever!). What will we have for you:

• Lots and lots of beautiful head lettuce: Red Sails, Buttercrunch, Red & Green Oak Leaf, Simpson Elite, Giant Caesar and endive
• Radishes: regular red ones, long skinny white ones, round white ones and red & white French Breakfast, all still sweet and mild!
• Green onions--they never taste this good from the store!
• Leaf lettuce--so tender and sweet, its worth getting downtown by 7:30 to get some!
• Maybe, maybe, maybe, but no promises....turnips
  

Hope to see you all there Saturday morning!