Wow! What a hot spell we had last week. Temperatures were well into the 90's with hazy sunshine and no rain - these are not good conditions for a lettuce farm. Actually, the lettuce managed okay, at least compared to the spinach and and baby mesclun greens. There is a reason these greens are sometimes sold as a 'Spring Mix', because spring weather conditions are when these greens really thrive. In the heat they get very stressed out (much like the farmer), and just want to bolt, or go to seed.
There's not much you can do about the weather, but we did get the irrigation up and going again. I don't think I had needed to use it for at least the month previous to last week. Watering helps, but really is no substitute for a good shot of rain. It seems that no matter how much you water, the ground is dry again within a day. We did get a brief downpour on Saturday morning, as we were loading the truck to go to market, of course, but it cleared up later that morning. This was good for the market - not so good for the vegetables.
There's not much you can do about the weather, but we did get the irrigation up and going again. I don't think I had needed to use it for at least the month previous to last week. Watering helps, but really is no substitute for a good shot of rain. It seems that no matter how much you water, the ground is dry again within a day. We did get a brief downpour on Saturday morning, as we were loading the truck to go to market, of course, but it cleared up later that morning. This was good for the market - not so good for the vegetables.If you think it was hot outside, you should have checked out the greenhouses. It had to be at least 110 degrees inside, reminiscent of a sauna, but with 99% humidity. It was literally hard to even breathe in there, let alone try to work. We did manage to get the week's salad greens planted in the greenhouses, but it was so hot many of the beds had very poor germination and had to be re-seeded later in the week.
To try and cool things down we covered the greenhouses with shade cloth. This is a woven mesh that goes over the whole house and blocks out a percentage of the light. Some seasons I have not had to use it, but when it gets into the 90's there really isn't any choice. It does make it a little cooler inside and you don't need to water as often, but on the down side, the greens tend to stretch for the light and become a bit 'leggy', and there is also more tendency for 'damping off'.It's always an adventure to get the cloth on... that really was one hot tin roof!
Believe it or not, things have started to wind down on the farm. With only three weeks until we leave on our sabbatical, the last of the lettuce and other transplants have been planted and the final seeding of greenhouse greens went in last week. So for now it's just weed, water and harvest. Oh yeah, I guess there is some cleaning up that needs to happen too.
The selection of produce at our farmers market table is still going strong, but we have probably seen the last of the peas and radishes. Spinach is holding in there, but just barely. Lettuce and salad greens, scallions, escarole, boc choi, and sprouts should continue to be abundant.
