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Author: farmerwyatt

  • Late Summer Farm Update

    Dear CSA Members,

    I wanted to say how much we appreciate all our members. Connecting with CSA members is often challenging but this year has been especially difficult with the virus lockdown. Normally a good number of members come to the farm for one of our 4 events but not this season. Not getting to interact with any CSA members is hard.

    Despite not being able to personally connect, I think about the CSA almost constantly. Between making the CSA crop list and thinking about what needs to be planted so we won’t have weeks where we are short and checking the progress of crops to make sure they are growing well and will be harvestable I am always thinking about what the CSA needs and how to improve it.

    For years I have been working on growing melons better. One of the things we noticed was the plants usually only made 2-4 melons per plant regardless of the size of the fruit. Different melons are bred to be different sizes. I decided that if we were only getting a few per plant that I might as well grow some of the large varieties since the production cost is the same. The first planting of melons is finishing, and the second planting of the larger variety is just starting. I think all 500-600 will ripen over the next 10 days! This evening I picked some seven-pound melons which are the largest we have grown. The heat and the variety have contributed to some great tasting large melons.

    The peppers are out of control with 20 per plant on many of the plants. We are having a hard time keeping up with the picking. There are over 80,000 peppers to be picked!!! Some of the shishito peppers produce more than 50 per plant. Due to the heat, crops started early but might finish a little earlier than normal. This should be fine but was not something I expected and did not build into my crop plan.

    Our first planting of corn was mostly eaten by red-winged blackbirds, so you did not get much. The second planting did not come up well and the third and fourth plantings are doing well. We should have some sweet corn again next week and then more in mid to late September.

    I hope you are enjoying your shares. The crew have been doing a great job of getting shares picked and packed.

    Thanks,
    Wyatt

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Late Summer CSA Update

    Dear CSA Members,

    We are 2/3 of the way through the Red Wagon CSA season.  Thank you so much for being part of our CSA!  It has been a good growing season and it is finally tomato time.  We try to get everything ready to plant right before the last spring frost date.  We then plant as much as we can as quickly as we can so that we can get crops as early as possible.  This way we have more variety in the CSA earlier and the crops can fully mature before the fall frost.  Every year we have to make a choice on which crop to plant first after what should be the last spring frost.  This spring on May 15 the weather forecast was for no more frost and I decided to start with planting tomatoes.  Shortly after the 3,000 tomato plants were planted the forecast changed to probable snow and cold.  We row covered our plants but it snowed on them.  Many tomato plants died and then after the storm we transplanted some leftover plants out to replace the dead plants.  The snow set the tomatoes back quite a bit and they are a little later this season than last season.  I am amazed that any plants survived the cold and coat of snow.  It could have been the snow or just a cooler summer but we only have half as many tomatoes per plant as we had last season.  Don’t worry we still have almost too many.

    The planning of when to plant what is challenging and then accomplishing getting everything planted is another challenge with weather not cooperating and other issues such as broken equipment.  We normally try to plant a little bit every week so that we can get each planting weeded before the weeds get too large and become more expensive and difficult to control.  In the spring after the last frost we have a tremendous amount to plant in a short time.  We have to wait until after the last frost to plant all the summer crops that cannot take a freeze.  This includes beans, melons, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, winter squash, pumpkins, eggplant and basil.  This is about 10 acres needing to be planted in 10 days.

    The fall crops are looking good.  We have a great winter squash crop and should give you one squash each week for the last 6 weeks of CSA.  We usually start with a spaghetti squash which I usually eat the first one of the season like spaghetti with a fresh tomato sauce made from barely heated fresh tomatoes.  The winter squash are a storage food.  I stored a spaghetti squash for a year and 5 days once before eating it just to see how long it would store.  Don’t worry if you are not eating each squash each week–they will reliably store well into the new year so put them in a cool dark-ish place and eat them after CSA is over.  They can also be baked and the pulp frozen for later use.

    The fall planting of greens like arugula will be back soon.  We have a good crop of Brussels Sprouts this year.  The parsnips are looking incredible with thigh high greens and roots already over a foot long.  Parsnips can be difficult to germinate and need to be kept damp for about 2 weeks in April to get them to emerge. This year the germination was good.  We did not plant a fall cauliflower crop at the right time.  I planted a little earlier to make sure that they would be ready before CSA ended and they are ripening now about a month before I wanted.  Two weeks difference in planting can change harvest dates by over a month sometimes.  We keep getting better at dates and varieties but are constantly learning to be better.

    We have a great crew this season and they have really worked to grow you some incredible food.  The crew has consisted of 12 people who have worked to grow 23 acres of food.  This is a small number of people to care for and harvest that much produce.

    It might be apparent to some of you how large some of our crops grow and how good they taste.  I have been working on using cover crop for fertility for the last few years and last fall planted over 20 acres to cover crop.  The cover crop is a crop that is grown to improve soil quality but that is not harvested.  The cover crops reduce erosion and fix nitrogen or capture existing nitrogen and prevent it from leaching. They also increase soil organic matter.  At different times of year we grow different cover crops but some of what we grow is: winter peas, rye, vetch, oats, clovers and sorghum-sudan grass. Buying seed, planting acres and acres and then watering those acres is a lot of work.  In the spring, the cover crops need to be managed so they don’t go to seed and need to be mowed and or plowed in.  Getting used to the additional work and the timing of it has been really difficult but is now becoming part of what we do.  The reduction in weeds and the increase in fertility make the work worthwhile.  As we continue to cover crop we expect to see greater and greater benefits.  The cover crop increases fertility and allows the crops to reach their full potential.  Check out some of the peppers that have grown to their full potential (because they were planted in a field that was cover cropped). They are enormous.

    I am working on some reduced tillage which is not easy in organic production with perennial weeds.  I am also working on increasing pollinator habitat.  Did you know Boulder has 350 native pollinators?  I am planting some flower seeds in the cover crop.  I planted clover and Birds Foot Trefoil into some of the farm roads where it grows and flowers without us having to do anything.  We leave our arugula from the fall in the ground over winter and it is one of the first things to bloom in the spring.  There are millions of flowers in a bed of arugula.  Managing flowers so they don’t spread and become weeds in our crops is challenging and having something in bloom at all times is something I have not worked out yet.  We do see wasps eating caterpillars and we know  the pollinators help control pests but we don’t quite know what flowers are attracting the right beneficial insects and if the system is working and how to improve. These are all projects that we work on behind the scenes and you don’t necessarily see when you come to pick up your veggies each week. Please make sure to attend our farm tour next week if you want to learn more about cover crop, pollinators, reducing tillage, and lots more.

    Thanks for being part of our CSA. I hope to see you at our Fall tour and our end of season pot luck.

    Wyatt

  • August Update from Wyatt

    August is here! We’re half way through the CSA season. The farm is finally starting to look more normal as we have finally caught up, the plants are growing, and we are awaiting the summer crops. In the previous update I wrote about the 6 weeks of rain in the spring that set us back tremendously. This entire growing season will feel the effects of that huge disruption all the way to the end. But, many crops are recovering and we are returning to a more normal rain-free farming.

    This season we have had more crop failures and missed crop plantings than ever before. At the same time we have stayed focused on getting the most important tasks done first and have been constantly prioritizing what to do first. The Red Wagon crew this season has done a great job of accomplishing everything quickly and efficiently all with a good attitude. We are not out of money yet and are hoping for the usual sale increase as the summer crops begin to arrive. I am somewhat baffled that we are not doing much worse when I add up the thousands of dollars in lost crops. I think we lost well over $50,000 in crops that we planted that are not going to make it.

    Most years when we make the weekly harvest list for CSA we have more choices than we need each week. This year it has felt like there were no choices and that we only had what we gave the CSA. We have brought much less food to the farmers’ market than usual. Twice a week we email a crop availability list to restaurants and for the last 2 months the list has been very short.

    The crop failures are as follows: the first two plantings of potatoes rotted. We tried a July planting and it looks promising so in late September we might have potatoes again. The early cauliflower, cabbage and broccoli that we grow for July to add some variety to the CSA did not survive the wet weather and were stunted. The first cucumber and zucchini plantings are dismal, but the second planting is doing extremely well. We did not plant many cucumbers in the second planting due to not having enough dry field so we will be light on cucumbers this year. The Brussels sprouts and fall cabbage don’t look good. The peppers and tomatoes and eggplant all look good but are about a month behind. They were planted late and it has been cool and wet. We row covered them to try and accelerate the growth. We will have some tomatoes, peppers and eggplant but it is not clear how much of a crop we will get. It will not be early, which is what we aim for since it usually freezes by mid-September. The melons look good and there are cantaloupe almost softball size. The first planting of cantaloupe (3,000 plants) are good. The second planting probably will not yield much. The watermelon were planted on bare soil. We normally plant them on the agricultural plastic mulch to get them to produce in our cool summers. We will see, but I don’t expect watermelon. The winter squash is growing but it is not clear if it will make a very good crop. This last hot week has helped, but it is difficult to tell. The pumpkins are growing terribly. Not exactly sure why but they seem to hate the soil they are growing in.

    We do have many of our usual crops doing well:

    The parsnips are glorious and are the greens are thigh high. The sunchokes are beginning to flower, which means they are just about ready. The later planting of kale and broccoli is looking very good and the last planting of kale and chard for fall was planted yesterday. The beans will continue to produce. The carrots and beets are finally doing well and we have several plantings all looking good.

    Onions- I have been working on learning to grow onions better and have been trying different planting methods. I apologize to people who do not want so many onions. I cook with lots of onions and use them up quickly. There is a pretty good crop of onions that we have already harvested with many more to be harvested.

    The leeks started to bolt early. I think they were stressed when planted. They were planted late due to the rain. The first planting is almost done and the second planting should be ready in the fall.

    The melons are coming and I think we should have a few weeks of cantaloupe for our CSA. They need to ripen before the first frost and hopefully before it starts to cool off in September.

    The edamame was planted in May and survived the rain and is looking like it will make a nice crop.

    As a bit of insurance for having enough food, we have just planted another acre of greens, radishes, beets, etc., this week. Normally we wait until mid-August to start planting for fall. In the upcoming weeks we will plant more carrots and spinach as well as more successions of greens.

    We are doing our best to keep our CSA members fed and hope to finish the season with a good variety and plenty of produce.
    Thanks
    Wyatt

  • Farm Update from Wyatt

    We try to communicate what we do on the farm to grow your food. In some ways it is simple in that we plant, water, weed, and harvest it. The complicated part is the planning and then the execution of the plan with constant changes to the plan due to ever changing conditions. The last six weeks have been the most challenging that we have ever experienced. It has been too wet to work in the fields with tractors for much of the spring planting season.

    Normally we use May 15 as the frost-free date for spring and September 15 for the first frost in the fall. Many of the crops we grow cannot tolerate frost and need to be grown in between these two dates. We normally plant half the farm in the May 15 to June 15 time period. Around here it is usually dry for most of that time. The constant rain has made it so we could not plant very much during this critical time period. I managed to plant a little if it was even close to dry enough to plant. This week we got the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and melons planted as well as winter squash. Both tractors ran all day for the last few days. We also hand-transplanted the Brussels sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower (we normally use our water-wheel transplanter for this job). We did not get the next planting of beets, carrots, or beans planted. There is only so much we can do in a day. Normally most of these crops would have been planted weeks ago and we would only have the winter squash left to plant and then successions of other crops (like carrots, beets, beans, and greens) to plant throughout the summer. It is supposed to start raining again tonight and the next few days so we will see what we can plant.

    The effect of the rain has been to slow down the growth of many crops. The beets leaves turned red and they almost died from too much water. I planted the beets in March and they were doing great until the rain and cold started in mid-April. For comparison, last year we had beets by the 3rd week of CSA. The transplanted kale, cauliflower, collards, and chard are also weeks behind normal. The Fava beans don’t normally like our climate, but they are happy this spring I am hoping for an impressive harvest on Fava beans. The peas are also cool-weather crops that are doing very well and should be ready next week.

    I always plant some “insurance crops” that are easy to produce, hold well in the field, and are crops people like. Zucchini, potatoes, chard, kale, beets, and carrots are some of my normal “insurance crops”. This spring many of these are struggling. There are some early potatoes, but our main planting rotted in a field with standing water. Fortunately I only planted half of my seed potatoes (and still have the rest unplanted), but we had over 1,000 pounds of seed potatoes rot. We had to plant the zucchini and cucumber seeds 3 times because they kept rotting in the wet ground. Now these plants are many weeks behind where they should be in early June. The kale is almost ready, but still growing slowly and not loving how saturated the soil is.

    This season we have a crew of 17 and last year we had 23 people working in early June. This is about 300 less hours worked per week than last season. Our crew missed work one day per week for 4 of the last 6 weeks because it was too wet to work. I was worried about our crew having to quit to find more reliable employment. Fortunately, the crew we have is great and we are accomplishing a significant amount every week.

    I am hoping it will not be a terrible farm season. We do actually have a good amount of food growing right now. We could use some luck and warm weather. We are working to give our CSA great quality food and to improve on the variety from week to week. We have to choose between giving you food that you have had enough of for a while, or not giving you anything. I know the turnips have become a bit much, but I had another farm buy Red Wagon turnips for their CSA because they did not have hardly anything ready. We want our CSA members to be happy and are doing our best but we cannot control weather. Wish us luck for better weather for the rest of the growing season!

  • Cool Weather Continues

    This spring and summer have been unusually cool.  The last time we as farmers experienced a season this cool was the year we started in 2004.  That year we planted 10,000 tomato plants that did not yield a tomato.  The plants were enormous but froze in the fall before getting a chance to ripen their fruit.  We normally get a first frost on September 15th.  Our first year we received a grant to try the plastic mulch that we now use for most of our warm season crops.  The tomatoes planted on plastic yielded tomatoes that year.  The tomatoes were ready about the same time as usual for tomatoes planted in bare soil.  Since that first year we have improved our growing techniques and usually have eggplant and peppers by August 1.

    When I plan for the CSA, I try to not plant too much that is ready at one time since we can’t give you $50 in food one week and none the next.  I expect certain crops to be ready for CSA around the normal dates.  This week I am frustrated – we have plenty of food just not what I wanted to give you in a week that will end in mid-August.  We planted 3,000 tomato plants, 4,000 pepper plants, 1,500 eggplant.  The plants are looking great but are just setting fruit on many plants.  It is hard to know exactly what we will get and when the first frost will come but we are likely to only get two thirds or even half of normal on these crops.  All of the costs to produce them have been the same and the picking labor will be less.  We often pick $5-10 of fruit per plant on these crops.   Losing $3-5 per plant times 8,500 plants is $34,000.  We will work to make sure CSA gets tomatoes, peppers and eggplant when they are ready.  It is not a planning error that we don’t have these summer crops on time–just a cool weather situation.  I don’t know exactly how much cooler this year is but the nights especially have been noticeably cooler than normal and most of the days 10-15 degrees cooler as well.

    In better news at least the tomatoes, peppers and eggplant look healthy and productive, just slow.  We do plant insurance crops like beets, carrots, kale and chard that hold well in the field and that can be picked when needed.   We have food for CSA just not the summery crops that I wanted and I know people are all waiting for.  Our fall broccoli and cauliflower plantings look like the best we have ever had.   We are well past the half way point of the CSA season and look like we are going to be able to finish the second half with some great food.   We planted our fall greens, radishes, etc. last week and they have emerged.   I hope we can find time to weed them while being understaffed and busy harvesting everything that is ready.