• On the Farm •

Tomato Planting by hand in BY--- Memorial Day Cabbage

So far so good! Timing is running neck and neck with need. We have been keeping up with laying irrigation and amazingly enough just ahead of weed pressure! That is a huge hooray for Joachim and Chris who are

working well for us. Not to say that I'm not weeding anymore but with their help this is the first year in many that we haven't lost anything yet to weed pressure.

The tomatoes that I brought back from Silver Seed Greenhouses were a bit too long for the mechanical transplanter and we are planting them by hand. So far we have planted just about half of the tomatoes or around 2,080 plants.

The early and atypical heat caused the tomatoes to mature more rapidly in the greenhouse and so we adjust. Everything planted looks great except the peas. We replanted four rows and have irrigation on them so I'm hopeful that we can make a crop. This heat is resulting in a lot of

flowers blooming much earlier than usual. We also are actually drier than usual with some very steady and desiccating wind.

The cows are well into their pasture rotation and look marvelous.

We got the basil in although the flats were rather spotty due to a glitch in the potting mix. The summer savory went in Monday afternoon with the basil and we spent the morning cultivating the lettuce, kale, parsley and celery. Memorial day Mustard, Radishes, BokChoi, Spinach,Endive

I got the sawmill running this past Thursday and cut the wood and built the new market stall for NYC. I'm almost done with the stall for Ashley farm. I'm really pleased to say that the new idea I implement for a canopy roll out is working way easier than spreading the old tarp was.

Standing still at the moment is the fencing project but I intend to get that into gear again as soon as the sets are all planted. WE have to keep the living alive and the posts have to wait.

Last week I had quite a jolt when I heard a plane fly over at about 100'. The second time he came over I was running for the camera and by the time I found it [moved courtesy of children]after a somewhat urgent phone the plane had changed it's pattern. Yep, a crop sprayer. WE were under the fly pattern of the sprayer although it was spraying an adjacent block for gypsy moth caterpillars. Several phone calls later and by mid-day I had the MSDS for the spray [BT-K] and concrete assurance that it hadn't released any spray over our farm. My neighbor had added fuel to the fire of my urgency by calling to say that he had video of the plane spraying. I haven't had a chance to see the tape yet but that call certainly drove my anxiety level up several orders of magnitude.

I am really pleased to say though that the NJ Organic Certification Administrator, Erich Bremmer and Karen Anderson, NOFA-NJ Executive Director were all over this issue as soon as I called and I had details by days end. I really want to thank them publicly for an excellent, expeditious and very professional response!

Back to the field for me!

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