News
12/23/2
We had our second spinach pick, a bit more than the first pick, two
days ago and delivered it yesterday.We expect a much larger third pick
in about two weeks. Mustard and arugula is also doing well; everything
responding well to fertilizer, rain, and mild temperatures.
Got another spinach field planted day before yesterday; all previously
planted spinach is up and looking well.
Last week, Franklin Zieschang called and offered to bring me some onion
plants; I took six boxes and they are currently being planted.
Still need to prepare the potato field(s), though it will be nearly two
months before it is time to plant; we expect to be overwhelmed with
spinach at potato planting time.
I haven't seen any deer in the past two weeks or more. Deer feeder
drops corn on the ground, which the birds eventually eat; no deer
tracks near the feeder.
Still no hard freeze, there are a few surviving tomato plants here and
there and a few fig leaves that haven't been frosted. Good for the
spinach; hard freezes will damage and stop growth.
12/12/2
Spinach is popping up all over. But, it's too wet to plant more. Our
first spinach pick yielded about 6 1/2 boxes; two boxes went to each of
three stores on this past Monday. Probably no more for another week or
more. Haven't located any potatoes and I haven't been willing to make
a trip to San Antonio just for onions. Deer have been maintaining a
low profile, probably due to wet, foggy weather and lack of moon light.
I'm installing a rainwater collection system for household use. If
anyone is interested, ask.
12/6/2
We had our first freeze last night. It was preceded by only a few
light frosts over the past few weeks. We picked 8 or 10 bushels of
various types of peppers yesterday and the day before. I mowed down
all the okra a few days ago, it had produced nothing for several weeks.
We had a 2.5" rain a few days ago so spinach looks promising, all that
was newly planted should be up in a few days. We plan our first
spinach pick tomorrow; there is some bug damage, but we expect to get
several bushels that is saleable. We have a little less than an acre
that is pickable, a bit more than three acres that is up, and another
acre that is not yet up. Now, I'm thinking about preparing to plant
onions and potatoes.
11/30/2
A dry several weeks. We have not gone to a farmers market or made
grocery store sales for about three weeks. No stuff. Deer are
starting to eat spinach (we are near our first picking), though they
haven't shown much interest in spinach in years past. We haven't quite
had a freeze yet, but the cool weather has stopped the hot weather
crops like okra and pepper. The deer have stopped the peas; we have on
pea field that was very promising that the deer have completely ruined,
not a single pea picked there. I've been taking half-hearted shots at
them with a .22; today, I'm going to dig out my scoped .223 and get it
sighted in. I've been looking into dogs, I have good reports from an
apple orchard in Maryland (next to Camp David) that uses dogs to run
deer. They use shock collars and a loop of wire around 10-50 acres to
keep the dogs on their place. I continue to talk to deer hunters, but
find that they are all just talkers.
The blackberries continue to look very good. I've got some recent
photos I hope to get up soon. They have been sicklebar pruned followed
by hand pruning and the middles have been disked.
We have about two acres of spinach up and about two more acres planted,
but not up. Next planting in a couple of weeks more. Thinking about
getting potato field ready to plant, we will plant those as early as
January, but more likely February. And onions. All spinach is being
planted with carrots mixed in the seed hopper, so the carrots are
coming along, also.
Other than all that, it's a really great time of year! No pressing
work, wonderfull weather. I've been getting in some fire wood, which
has several benefits: good execise in pleasant conditions, getting
troublesome growth out of the way, not paying Bluebonnet or anyone else
for my heat, and keeping warm on cold nights.
11/7/2
A rainy several weeks. We had eleven straight days with rain, followed
by a couple of days of sun, followed by another several wet days that
included one day with 4.35". A lot of stuff ruined. Deer continue to
eat the peas and it looks like the last two acres will not produce.
We continue to try to get spinach planted. Frost threatens, but has
not materialized. Only peppers continue to do fairly well.
Blackberries continue to look very good; they were first mechanically
pruned, then hand pruned and weeded.
We dropped the Sun City market a few weeks ago due to weak demand, last
Thursday (Halloween) was my last Georgetown market and last Saturday
was Ray's last Westlake market. Last year's records indicate that were
were selling fairly well at farmers markets through mid-November.
10/20/2
SO! It's been a whole month since I posted. Thanks for bringing it to
my attention, George.
Farmers Markets have slowed a great deal, customers are just not
appearing; they tend to do that in Fall, I know not exactly why. We
are getting tomatoes (not mine, I will not have Fall tomatoes this
year) in the markets, so that is no longer a valid excuse. We are
still picking quite a few peppers and only a few cantaloupe. Deer are
eating the peas that I hope to be picking in another week or two.
We've got a little patch of arugula that we are picking. The first
spinach planting is up and should be producing some in another 5 or 6
weeks. I'm trying to find time to make more plantings. Having dropped
Sun City due to low demand, we are currently doing only Georgetown on
Thursdays and Westlake on Saturdays; both are marginal and may also be
dropped.
I got in the hay business last week. I first bought a sickle-bar mower
to prune blackberries and it worked fairly well for that purpose; now,
I'm using it to cut pastures. Then, I bought a rake. Last week, I
bought a square baler. My goal is mainly to keep the weeds cut off my
pasture land (which is not fenced well enought to be grazed) and use
the very weedy hay for mulch on figs and blackberries. Keeping it cut
should cause the pasture to gradually improve and produce saleable hay.
My FirstBaleofHAY, of which I am very proud even though it is loose and
ugly, sits in our front yard and will sit there until it falls apart.
BTW, the newest blackberries are looking very good and we expect to
have as good production from that patch as we had from the older patch
this past season; the older patch should produce 3-4 times what it did
this past season. SO! we are looking for 4-5 times as many berries
next year.
9/18/2
Ray Menke, my Sun City sales person was telling me that yesterday folks
were asking what is in my pipeline. I told him to refer them to my web
page and then realized that it had been a long while since I had posted
an update. So, here I am.
For the past few weeks we've been struggling with buggy peas, I had
started spraying them too late. We have been producing a fair number
of peas, but cleaning them up (removing the damaged peas) has been quite
costly. We are now getting into peas that are nicer, but the wet
weather is damaging them and cleaning them up remains costly. We
continue to plant peas, but will quit soon.
I hope to find time to get some spinach planted in the next few weeks;
that would probably be for harvest beginning sometime in December.
We have been planting zucchini for the past four weeks or so and should
start harvesting in the next week or so.
We made a small planting or arugula and should start picking that in a
couple of weeks.
As of last week, the tomatoes are completely gone; even the very ugly
ones. I would have liked to have planted some more a couple of months
ago, but the labor situation did not allow it; we were too far behind
in harvesting.
We are within a box or two of being out of pears; they will be gone at
the next market. The watermelon are very nearly gone; coyotes and
failure to irrigate have taken many. We continue to have a fair supply
of very high quality Super45 cantaloupe.
Asparagus has been a sunrise. After the recent rain, it started
putting out a profusion of shoots. Which we are picking and selling.
We normally pick asparagus only from February 'til May or so.
Blackberries continue to look very good. Since I can not find labor to
hand prune them, I am looking at the possibility of getting a sickle
bar mower that will operate in a vertical position.
This is the time of year when WIC voucher recipients are eager to get
their vouchers spent since they expire at the end of September.
Several markets will be closing as the WIC demand disappears. The
Georgetown market will re-open next week.
8/8/2
Started spraying the last of the tomatoes too late! They're full of pin
worms and spider mites.
Cream peas have finally started, we're getting 50-100 lb/day. Will
probably have to stop picking okra to harvest the more valuable peas.
Blackberry fields continue to look very good. I need some pruning
labor.
Cantaloupes are producing; prospects for many more are good.
8/6/2
The last tomato field is producing, but not very many. They do,
however, look better than those that came from fields that got rain
during their peak. Haven't seen any figs in a while. Peas are finally
getting started, though still only less than ten pounds per picking.
Okra just keeps on keeping on. First watermelon patch is still
producing some, second is seeing coyote visits.
Over the next several weeks, we see plenty of okra, quite a few
cantaloupe, and a good supply of peas.
We planted a row of zucchini a few days ago and plan to plant
additional rows every two weeks or so.
Georgetown and Round Rock farmers markets are scheduled to end in the
coming week. Just as our peas get going.
7/25/2
Most of the tomatoes are gone; they have been VERY ugly the past couple
of weeks. We do have one more field just getting started, but they are
rotting about as fast as they are ripening.
Figs have been a disappointment; we have not picked as much as a gallon
in any single day. We typically take 6 or 12 pints to a farmers market
and that represents two or more days of picking.
Pears are coming and they, too, are few. Relatively; we will have
probably several hundred boxes altogether.
Peas are finally looking pretty good and we are picking a few hands
full at a time. I believe the flush of growth from the wet period is
suppling the deer with plenty of other food. Though, I have been
putting out barbershop hair. We continue to plant peas and hope to
have a good supply in coming months.
Okra continues to produce well.
The first planting of watermelon is a disappointment due to a high
mortality rate back during the drought. The second planting looks much
better and should be producing in a month or six weeks.
We are spending some time cleaning up the berry patch that produced
this season and the patch that will start producing next season. I
have a few new blackberry field photos that I hope to get posted soon;
the contrast between "before" and "after" is striking.
7/7/2
The horrible drought is over. It was followed by a devastating wet
period. Most of the tomatoes have been ruined. That gives us time to
devote to peas, though. Both wholesale and farmers market customers
continue to ask for peas; we are still a month or more away from any
significant volume. Drought, deer, and lack of time have been the
problems. We have been picking a few figs for the past week or so.
20th Century asian pears are near. We are completely overwhelmed by
okra; we are picking at least twice as much as we can sell.
The labor problem was aleviated about two weeks ago, I now have seven
field hands.
The second watermelon planting is in the ground and doing well; the
first is near production.
Ananas cantaloupe has been a suprise this year. One row of Ananas is
producing much better than a row of Super 45. The very large Ananas,
however, are much more difficult to sell than the "normal" Super 45.
I bought 1/4 interest in a potato digger; it failed to work well in my
weedy potato rows. We finally finished digging potatoes. We lost many
to being in wet soil for too long.
6/21/2
"Things" remain busy. We turned off the PYO blackberries last week, but
we continue to pick a few gallons a day. Labor is VERY short with
three workers. And one of THOSE has the chicken pox. Tomatoes
continue to flow. Squash is fading. Okra continues to increase, now
up around 3 bu/day. We just started getting a few cantaloupes. No
watermelon yet, but the coyotes have started eating them. Been picking
a little corn which soon will be gone. We got .9" of rain about six
days ago, but we have started irrigating again. We are trying to get
the second watermelon planting in; I've put in about 100 of the 800 or
so plants myself. They have to be hand watered at least once a day.
I've got about three more fields of cream peas planted and the recent
rain and sprinklers brought them up. Gonna have some well-fed deer.
6/8/2
"Things" have been busy! The Kiowa blackberries are on the downhill
slope. Our last two PYO days will be 6/9/2 (Sunday) and 6/11/2
(Tuesday). We are in full swing on tomatoes and have #2 canning
tomatoes available at $12/bushel. Supply on okra is still low compared
to demand, but we will soon be offering PYO okra for $.50/lb. By
appointment. Not much progress on peas; still trying to get them up
and keep the deer off them. This past week we had two minor showers of
.5" and .3".
5/26/2
The Brazos and Rosoborough blackberry varieties are about done. Kiowas
are just getting started. We will probably be open for pick-your-own
for at least a week more.
We are picking about a bushel of tomatoes at a time. Which brings me to
a pet peeve. Every year about this time we encounter sales resistance
to pink tomatoes. Yesterday at the Westlake market a customer
commented that she preferred to buy vine ripened tomatoes to buying our
pink tomatoes. What she did not realize is that we pick ALL our tomatoes
at the pink stage. As do most all local truck farmers. The difference
in color of tomatoes is mostly due the the time since picking. What the
customer was saying is that she preferred to buy tomatoes that had been
picked Tuesday or Wednesday rather than tomatoes that had been picked
Friday. I recognize that people irrationally prefer to buy red
tomatoes and that is what we try to have for them. However, at the
start of the season pinks are all we have.
The deer seem to be eating all the peas before they mature. I need to
get out there and plink at them.
We had "rain" this morning. About .08".
5/19/2
The first of the cream peas are close, but there a very few. I have
only two plantings out and the second has not come up well due to dry
conditions. And a labor problem is developing. Pea planting will
continue through August as labor and other conditions allow. Have
picked about ten good tomatoes and expect to start selling in a few
days. Very few for a week or more, though. We are getting about a
bushel of squash a day and it looks like okra will start soon. STILL
trying to get the last tomato planting out. Green beans are about
over, though they will trickle in for a couple of more weeks; don't
expect much from the last planting which is spotty.
5/15/2
Blackberries are in full production. We opened for pick-your-own
yesterday. Not a single customer. We will be open Tuesdays and
Sundays, 8:30-10:30, for only a week or two if business does not
improve.
Still no significant rain. Green beans continue. Dug a row of potatoes
and will dig another in a couple of days; about twenty more rows to go.
Rotted and damaged tomatoes are turning red; good ones not far behind.
Picking a little squash. Still trying to find time to get the last
tomato planting out.
5/6/2
Blackberries are just starting; we have been getting less than a gallon
a day for several days. Today, we are having a big green bean pick.
More than ten bushels. I've gotten caught up on irrigation and have
slacked off a bit. Got water going to all the new blackberries and all
the new peaches. We are having to sprinkle to try to bring up
plantings made a couple of weeks ago.
We are going to 4 farmers markets: Sun City, Georgetown, Westlake, and
Round Rock.
4/29/2
VERY dry. Not to mention HOT. There is little to harvest, so we are
working on getting water to crops. Green beans (irrigated) are close.
We had our first potatoes for supper last night. Blackberries continue
to look good; they are two weeks or more away. Many peas, beans, and
corn planted in dust are waiting for moisture to germinate. First
Round Rock and Georgetown markets this week. Asparagus has slowed way
down, but we will continue to pick it until other crops demand the
labor.
4/13/2
The blackberries are looking terrific! I will almost certainly be
selling some pick-your-own. I have a local friend who has committed to
handle sales two mornings a week. No schedule yet set. Berries are, I
guess, five or more weeks away. When the schedule is set, I will
announce it in a newsletter. If you are not subscribed, you may do so
by following a link at http://austinfarm.org.
Green beans are looking good and look like they could start blooming
soon. Unfortunately they will not be spread out; the first planting
and second plantings came up about the same time due to dry conditions
after the first planting. These are "Green Crop", a bush Kentucky
Wonder type that I have grown for several years.
Cream peas also look good.
I decided on the spur of the moment to plant some sweet corn. In the
past, coons have prevented any real production. We will see.
Okra has been interplanted with beans and corn. Some of it is up.
We are at the peak of asparagus production. It is not selling as well
as I'd like.
Picked a little arugula a few days ago.
Last year's chard is doing well and producing as much as I can sell at
farmers markets. Farmers Marekets? Sun City on Tuesday mornings and
Westlake Saturday mornings. Round Rock and Georgetowm begin the first
of May.
Hot weather has caused much of the spinach to bolt; the rest will be
gone soon.
Potatoes look good. May dig a few in two or three weeks.
We got our first decent rain in a long while, about 2" about a week ago.
This past week, after the rain, we planted about 4000 tomatoes and a
few hundred peppers. The first seedless watermelon planting is
scheduled in about three weeks, with a second following about a month
later.
3/24/2
A light frost yesterday morning; no apparent damage, frost on vehicles
and on vegetation surrounding fields, but not on crops. Clean
cultivation helps.
Green beans are starting to come up, they have been very slow. We
finally got 6/10 inch of rain a few days ago, though the surface is
again dry. Planted a field of cream peas just a day before the rain;
they are starting to come up.
And spinach is booming. Pickers have spent four or five days and have
picked only three rows; there are about twenty more rows waiting to be
picked. So, in about a week we have gone from not having anything
worth picking to being behind.
About 900 tomato plants are in the ground and I am scheduled to pick up
another 4000 tomorrow. Time to get serious about tomato planting.
Blackberries are growing and getting ready to bloom. Wild berries
around here are blooming. Newly planted berry roots are coming up
well. As are the surrounding weeds.
Pears are in mid bloom; some varieties are past full bloom and some
have not yet bloomed. Same with peaches.
Asparagus continues to produce well when nights are warm.
Current production is asparagus, spinach, and carrots. No new crops on
the horizon. Maybe radishes in 15-20 days, then potatoes and green
beans in 30-40 more days.
3/15/2
How time flies!
The freeze recounted below was followed by another the next Monday.
Monday morning's freeze was not quite as cold, but would have been more
damaging had there been damage to do because it lasted longer. A pipe
in the barn was broken and, after the thaw, water ruined quite a few
new boxes that were stored on top of the walkin cooler.
It has been about two weeks since the devastating freezes; there has
been much recovery and we started picking asparagus again day before
yesterday. Spinach could be picked, but I am waiting for it to get a
little larger and more cost-effective to pick. About half of the
potatoes are up. The small crops of radishes, beets, arugula, and
chard that I have planted were either frozen out or have not come up
due to dry conditions. The oldest two fields of spinach look too bad
to try to resurrect and we have been killing off rows and planting
tomatoes there. Also, we have been pulling a few carrots out of
those oldest spinach fields. One field of mixed green beans and okra
was planted about a week ago, but we need some moisture before they
come up. The last spinach planting was made the day before beans were
planted. Even though it is too early, I plan to plant some peas in the
next several days. In this lull before serious spinach harvest begins,
we are trying to get ahead of the bermuda infestations: plowing and
pulling loose bermuda and plowing again.
3/1/2
We had quite an astonishing freeze Wednesday morning. It did more
spinach damage than any other freeze I have seen. We were down to
about 17 deg at the house, which is protected by surrounding brush. I
expect it was in the low teens in open fields. Small just emerged
spinach plants were killed outright, all other plants were severly
damaged; we will have to wait for new growth before we resume picking.
I put 5 gallon buckets over the tomato plants that were under milk
jugs, they survived. The tomatoes in covered cages did not.
Just a few pears had started blooming and none of the peaches. Figs
were not yet leafed out. Blackberries were just starting to leaf.
I expect little to no damage to any of those.
Only two of about twenty rows of potatoes were up, so there was
relatively little damage there. A small planting of radishes seems to
have been killed. On the bright side, weeds too were frozen back.
Note that tomorrow is Independence Day.
2/18/2
Spinach continues to do well, we're up to around 1500 bags a week now.
I planted the first of the tomatoes a couple of days ago, only a few;
we are almost certain to get more freezes, so they are under plastic.
All peaches are planted. Potatoes continue to come up. And radishes.
Trying to find time to plant onions and more potatoes.
2/3/2
Spinach situation is much improved. The more recent plantings are
looking very good and we are picking about 500 10oz bags a week. Good
prospects for the next couple of months. As usual, we are leaving much
holey spinach in the fields; anyone wanting a good buy on about 5lb
quantities should contact me.
The first potatoes are starting to come up. And get frosted down.
More potato planting underway.
The new blackberry planting is complete; recent photos in "photo
gallery".
Will plant (and re-plant) about two hundred peach trees in the next
couple of weeks. I noticed that a protective berm that I threw up
above the new blackberry patch will make a good spot for peach trees.
Optimism runs rampant.
1/12/2
A new year!
We have had several hard freezes with some temperatures in the low 20s;
don't see any more grasshoppers. Maybe the plague of the last several
years is over.
Spinach is doing typically poorly; I just can't seem to produce any
great quantity before February. We have about five acres in now and
will plant a couple more in a few weeks.
We are making some progress in cleaning up. That is, getting weeds and
old crops out of fields, getting fertilizer and irrigation tubing laid
down, and getting them prepared to plant. We used two 20(?) yard loads
of turkey litter last year and we are working on getting three more
applied this year.
I just planted the first row of potatoes with seed potatoes left over
from last year's crop. This is about a month early, so I'll probably
wait a month or more to get serious about planting potatoes. Last
year's potato crop was a bright spot. We had about 300 banana boxes,
about 50lb each. They kept well in the cooler (where I had plenty of
room due to having almost no peaches) and I was able to sell them at
farmers markets until the bitter end in November; I have less than ten
boxes left for seed.
I hope to prepare the new blackberry field over the next several days
and then get it planted in a few weeks. If the nursery stock comes in.
Last year's blackberry field is all cleaned up and looks pretty good.
Seed catalogs are coming in and I'm starting to pick out things to
order.
This is always an optimistic time of year. If only it would last.
12/13/1
Over the past couple of weeks we have had several light freezes and all
the summer stuff is gone. We are picking minor amounts of chard and
spinach.
Plans progress for a second new blackberry planting.
All farmers markets are now closed for the season.
My ISP, inetport.com, suddenly suspended operation; my current email
address is mckemie@austinfarm.org.
If you have an interest in following the development of the new market
being planned by the Sustainable Food Center, send me a message to that
effect.