New Minglewood Farm: Gardening Time

Wow, Memorial Day is upon us...does time speed up as you get older? Perhaps this is an example of the TPR principle- that's the Toilet Paper Roll principle: the closer it gets to the end, the faster it runs out. Regardless, the unofficial start of summer is this weekend, of course the astrological start isn't for another few weeks, so don't panic.

Minglewood crew hard at work

Most significantly though, Memorial Day is the traditional weekend to get your vegetable garden planted. The average last frost for this region is May 20, so it should be safe to put out all those warm weather crops like tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, and basil. Of course, with the totally random and unpredictable weather we have had this spring, I would recommend keeping the sheets and blankets handy to cover plants, just in case we get an unusually late frost.

If you are a gardener, be sure to stop by our stand at the Saratoga market to check out all your planting options. We have a wide selection of over 25 tomato varieties, both heirlooms and hybrids, plus peppers, eggplant, herbs, lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini and summer squash. We offer the only Certified Organic plants at the Saratoga market.

On the weather front, farming has continued to be a challenge this year. We have had some absolutely perfect sunny days, however, the rainy periods in between have prevented us from keeping on any kind of regular planting schedule. With our heavy soils, we are forced to wait as long as possible for the fields to dry and then planting like crazy the day before it rains again. With the saturated soils, I am sad to say that crops have not been growing particularly well this spring. The most affected crop has been the field grown spinach. All our early plantings have essentially drowned. They hung on for quite awhile, but finally this week the plants succumbed, turning yellow, struggling for a last gasp of air...and died.

"Help- I'm drowning....."

The spinach goes down

Fields so wet, the geese think it's a pond!

Fortunately we've had the greenhouse plantings for lettuce and mesclun, which have provided a respectable supply for market. We have also had a good run with sprouts at market. It's nice to have at least one crop that is not weather dependant. While we have had issues with airborne mold spores causing trouble during the most humid periods of the summer, generally they are an easy crop to grow.

We produce them in our dedicated sprout room in an automated sprout machine - "Auto-Sprout". This has served us well for 13+ years. The basic process is to soak the seeds first in a very dilute disinfecting solution to kill any bacteria on the outside of the seeds, and then to rinse, rinse, rinse. This process is required by the FDA to insure that the sprouts are safe from pathogens.

Rinsing the seeds

We then soak the seeds in water for 6 to 8 hours, and then spread them on the screen trays. Then we pop them in the sprouter and turn it on. The machine automatically mists the seeds every half hour for 30 seconds. After four days, we start to green them up with a grow light. At five to six days they are ready to eat. We take them out of the sprouter on Saturday morning and bring them to market - voila.