Crop Update

Yes they are here...our second planting of squash is now coming in and we have seeded our third planting...despite the rain and the rain and the rain...the squash still produce.

We are harvesting this amount of squash and zucchini every other day ...that is about 700 lbs every other day...Yikes!!!!

It seems that almost every day a new crop is ready...Friday the cucumbers hit there stride and today it was the green beans. Today Chris did a scouting harvest checking in on the onions and the garlic and the...yes, the potatoes.

The garlic is looking good, we will be able to offer fresh garlic soon, quite different from their drier later selves, the green beans are looking great, the onions need a little more time. They do the bulk of their top formation before the solstice and now will put their energy into bulb development.

Our first potatoes will be red skinned and as always extremely delicate. New potatoes must be handled with extreme care because of their super thin skin. In a few weeks the tops will die down, and then they are left in the ground for a bit for the skins to set. No longer so delicate we can harvest them with a machine and wash them in our barrel washer. But in the up and coming weeks, we will begin the potato harvesting.

Oh and we even have a first crop of baby carrots this week, sooooo tender and sweet!

Here they come!!!!

Over the years we have grown many different types of squash and zucchini. We seem to have honed in on straight neck squash, green zucchini and a yellow patty pan called sunburst. We have tried the light green Lebanese, the round shaped zucchini, even the green patty pan which are flatter than the Sunburst. It is not to say that we won't do some of them again, but the fact of the matter is, we grow twice as much zucchini as

yellow and patty pan...people like green, and the darker the better.
Our first harvest was yesterday, the zucchini came in first...500 pounds of it, very exciting!!!! Funny how the vegetable that is the most plain and probably the most given away come July is so very exciting in early June. To us it represents the first "hard" vegetable of summer.
Don't get me wrong, we have been harvesting beets and peas and delicious spring turnips for a few weeks, and lettuces and greens for months now. Squash and zucchini open the door to so so much more to come. They clearly state that summer has arrived....cucumbers and tomatoes will not be far behind!!!
So here they come...get out the recipes...post us any good ones that you love, I am particularly looking for some dessert uses. I am thinking about organizing a pot luck surrounding this over productive vegetable, we will see how that develops

The cucumbers are not too far behind. Here is one just waiting to mature to adorn you salad or hold center stage on it's own.....my children just love cucumber salads!!!!

Crop Update

The view of the upper fields from the high spot behind the strawberries

We planted day neutral strawberries this year and look forward to picking them all season long. We hope to be able to give strawberries one or two times to our CSA groups as well as offer them to our Farmer's Market customers. Notice the black plastic and the white plastic....the black will bring the plants planted on it in earlier while the white plastic will reflect the hot summer sun keeping those berries producing better in the height of the summer.

Garlic...Planted in the Fall it is the first to jump up in the spring and it will stay there until harvested mid summer. We offer the bulbs freshly pulled for the first week or so before we put them in our barn to cure. It is amazing how much more water is in the garlic before they are cured. Though it makes perfect sense, it never ceases to surprise people.

Here are the onions...they are looking great this year. They quickly rooted after transplanting and seem to be growing quickly...we do have a mild thrips population in our fields that often slows the growth of our onions come mid June...we will keep you updated!!!!

Mesclun waiting to be harvested. This picture was taken last week which means that these greens are being enjoyed by folks from Western Massachusetts to NYC across the Hudson in Woodstock and as far North as Glens Falls. Many a Memorial Day picnic will include these humble lettuces.

More greens; arugula, tatsoi and rapini to the rear. We grow all of these crops under floating row covers to keep the flea beetles off.

Peas, the most anticipated of the spring vegetables. Sweet and crisp they are welcome on many tables cooked or raw.

Here is our first planting of Kale. We have already planted our second planting while our third was just seeded in the greenhouse.

So there you have it, a quick update of where some of the crops are. Other than a few woodchucks nibbling here and there as well as some deer damage in the first planting of swiss chard and beets, things are off to a good start.