Let the Tomatoes Begin

Well, the tomatoes are not exactly off to a roaring start, but they have started to trickle in here at Minglewood. With the cool weather of early summer and too much rain, it's not shaping up to be a banner year for warm weather crops like tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, or melons. Despite this, we will definitely have a crop, maybe not quite as abundant as some other years, but don't despair, there will be Minglewood tomatoes. During the past week we picked about 15 pounds, and there appears to be plenty of green fruit on the vines. Each week we will be bringing more and more. Keep in mind that the tomato season for us does not peak until around Labor Day.

Other good news is that green beans are starting to produce. We used to grow a lot of these, but got so sick of picking them that we stopped growing them for a few years. Lately, we have missed them, so we are growing them again, but in limited, more manageable quantities. We grow a beautiful variety called Jade. It's a long narrow bean, which we try to pick while it's small and tender.

Also in the good news department, spinach is back. You may recall we had a crop failure early in the season due to spinach blight, a virus transmitted by aphids. We started planting the spinach on the opposite side of the farm, and plowed under the diseased plantings. And what do you know, the new crop is disease free - so far. Spinach is not a big fan of hot weather, so I'm not sure how long the success will last, but it looks like we will have plenty to go around for the next few weeks.

Enjoy the bounty of summer!

Wildlife, Fresh Faces, Fresh Food

It's a wild life here on the farm. The robins have hatched their second brood of chicks for the season. Mama Robin, in her good judgement, reused an old nest located in the rafters of the farm shed. Not the best place for privacy, considering all the human traffic through there all day long, but certainly the driest spot for a nest during this wet summer. I was excited that at least two of the eggs hatched, because one of them had actually blown out of the nest into the driveway a few weeks ago. I carefully returned it to the nest and the parents continued to incubate the eggs, despite the tale that a bird will abandon a nest if it is touched by humans.

It was also an unusual week for other bird sightings here. Early one morning while watering the greenhouse, I heard the distinct call of a loon as it flew overhead. After a moment of confusion to where I was, I ran outside to look for it, but it was already out of sight. This bird was apparently as confused as I was. I've heard that loons are occasionally seen on Cossayuna Lake on their migrations north or south, but this time of year it's quite rare to find them here.

Now, I am not making this up, I swear, later that evening I'm washing dishes and look out the window to see a large bird flying over. It turns to reflect the fading light and it's head is pure white... no mistaking a mature Bald Eagle, here over Minglewood. Again, not unheard of, especially in the winter, but pretty unusual during the middle of summer.



Well, back to the topic of farming. The crew roster this season has grown and evolved to be quite the eclectic, experienced and dedicated bunch. At the core we have Martin, professional artist and art blogger, back for his second season. Luke, another artist, as well as, musician/performer is back for a third season, after a hiatus away in the big city. Laura H. is recently back on the farm, a recent SUNY Oneonta graduate, returning after three years away. Also back to help with markets and one day a week is Laura S., one of our longest term

employees at four seasons. Rounding out the roster with a day a week is Maura M. also returning for her fourth or fifth season; Maureen, helping with markets and Wednesday harvests; Molly filling in for market help while attending summer courses at Skidmore; and new comer Linea starting this past week. In addition to the regular crew, our friend Tom Mendel has been graciously helping out a morning a week. Obviously, it takes a lot of hands to bring all that good food to market each week. Be sure to thank a farm worker when you meet them, it's a lot of hard work that mostly goes unrecognized. Thank you crew! And oddly enough, did any one realize that everyone on the crew has a first name starting with 'L' or 'M' (except for Tom, because he's exceptional). What'sup with dat?

On the food front... freshly dug new fingerling potatoes are in! We are growing three varieties again this year: Russian Banana, French Fingerling, and All Blue.

Banana is probably the best known of fingerlings. It has tan skin with dark yellow flesh and forms the classic finger-shape at 2-3 inches. This is my favorite potato to roast with olive oil and fresh herbs.

French Fingerling, also known as Nosebag, is plumper than most, but is still considered a fingerling. Rose-red skin and deep yellow flesh make this potato really stand out. It has a creamy smooth texture with exceptional flavor.

All-Blue, is more of a specialty potato rather than a true fingerling. It has deep-blue skin and blue flesh. Freshly dug and washed these appear as sparkling jewels.

We will be bringing potatoes to market through out the summer and into the fall, for as long as they last.

Sunshine Returns to Minglewood

What was that bright light in the sky this week? Oh yeah, the sun... it's been awhile since we have seen much of it. It was much needed relief after all the cool and wet weather of the past few weeks. The fields dried out enough early in the week to get mostly caught up on all the transplanting and seeding we had fallen behind on. On Thursday we even had time to start weeding and cultivating some crops. We still have an endless amount of weed pulling to go, but it felt good to at least make a dent.




This past week brought the end to the snap pea season on the farm. They had a pretty good run, harvesting for a little over 3 weeks. That's about all you can ever expect. We also grow a couple of rows of shell peas, mostly for ourselves to freeze. We don't usually sell them because they are so much work for what you can get out of them. It takes just as long to pick a pint of shell peas as it does snap peas, but by the time you shell the peas, you are left with barely a single serving. We can't really justify selling them for what it really costs to pick them. Despite all this, we will probably have a few extra to sell at market this
week.

Most of the other crops continue to do well, despite all the challenging conditions. The unusually cool and damp weather has really pushed the greens to perform well. The head lettuce and escarole are absolutely huge. The baby greenhouse greens have done well also. I think we harvested more arugula from the beds this week than ever before. For Saturday's market we cut nearly 30 pounds from 3 1/2 beds; that's about twice what I would normally expect!

We are hoping the next couple of weeks stay on the dry side so we can continue to get the rest of the fall crops in the ground. We still need to plant the fall broccoli, kale, turnips, broccolini, and raab, as well as, the late plantings of lettuce, spinach, scallions, boc choi and other crops we try to have available all season long. There is a small window of opportunity now, between the last of the pea picking and the start of the tomato picking, where we actually have a little time to focus on planting and weeding and spend less time on harvesting. So much to do....how did it get to be mid-July already!

After the Deluge

Last Wednesday brought severe thunderstorms to Washington county. We were at the Saratoga Farmer's Market when they came though, so we didn't know what to expect upon our return. I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky, as the storms were much worse to the north and south of us, but none the less, things were really a mess. We received over 3 inches of hard rain that afternoon. We may have had a little hail as well, but not enough to tear thing up too much.

The most noticeable damage was in the melon field, which is on a slight incline. The flooding rain created a major wash-out of mud right across the
top of the row cover. The mud flow continued
down hill and actually washed right through the
tomato tunnels. The tomatoes were not
damaged, although the ground is so saturated that
some of the plants are showing signs of severe
stress.


Most of the other crops made it through the storm okay, the worse damage being done to the lettuce which was pretty bruised from the driving rain. I was quite worried at first that it might be too damaged to sell, but by Friday's harvest most of it seemed to have recovered and we were able to salvage the bulk of the crop.

So, now we are left to deal with more mud. By this afternoon to our amazement, things were actually starting to dry out. I was able to get some mowing done and even seed more beans, radish and spinach. If it would just stay dry for a couple more days we could get back on track,
unfortunately, the forecast doesn't look to
promising for that to happen.



Despite all the bad weather we continue to have a nice variety of produce at the market. It has been a phenomenal year for the snap peas; the vines are so loaded they collapsed the trellis. We picked over 100 pounds for last Saturday's market and sold all bought a hand full. We probably have about another week of picking before they are done. There are still a lot of pods on the vines, but the rain has really brought on the diseases and rot.

Other crops are coming to a end as well: broccolini is just about done, and we're down to the last of the turnips. On the upside: radicchio is starting to head up, and new potatoes are only a few weeks away. So, keep visiting us at market to see what is new!