9/22/7
Wow!  I've been working so much, I can't find time to do anything else. 
Still no farmers market person, still no field hands.  We've been heavy 
into long beans and peas.  I've had more of both than I could pick even 
if I didn't have anything else that needed picking.  Thankfully, both 
are delcining now.  I rarely even look at the potential Fall tomatoes.  
I think this was the last week for selling pears; we picked only a small 
fraction of them.  We are getting a few persimmons, but they haven't 
been selling well.  I have a row of Tatume that is doing well.  Okra has 
suffered from lack of water, lack of picking, lack of weeding, lack of 
pruning.  But I stil have more to pick than I want.  Peppers and 
eggplant are suffering from lack of water and lack of weeding.  But I 
still have as much as I want to pick. I worked a bit on the electric 
deer fence but at least some deer continue to cross.  I have some 
cougar noise makers up an they seem to keep the deer from spending much 
time in the peas.  I have some broccoli transplants that I haven't 
found time to put out.  I still have more arugula than I want to pick 
and a new row coming.  I've been thinking about preparing some ground 
for spinach and considering if I want to have spinach to pick.  It has 
finally dried out and I'm ready for some rain; I'm are trying to put 
water out, but that too takes time.

8/2/7
My last field hand is gone.  My long time farmers market guy, Ray 
Menke, unexpectedly quit on me.  That means I'm picking everything 
myself (well, Jean picks some) and I've only got 6 days a week to do 
it.  At least until I find someone to do the Saturday market.
The persistent wetness put an early end to tomatoes.  Figs are about 
gone.  Pears have started.  Eggplant, peppers, longbeans, and okra 
continue.  I have four rows of peas that are about ready to bloom and 
four more that are just up.  All look real good.  I have fence that is 
down from the 10" rain in March and deer are roaming in the plantings.  
I'm trying to find time to get the fence back up.

7/7/7
Finally things have slowed a bit.  Berries are gone.  Peaches are gone. 
Rain and wet weather have mostly ruined the tomatoes.  When they 
started slowing down, I started picking all of the long beans every day 
and now I'm down to less than 2lb per day.  I got four rows of peas in 
and would like to get more in.  As soon as I make some progress 
preparing rows for planting, we get more rain.  Then, I have to wait a 
few days and by then the weeds are ahead again.  Need to get more long 
beans in, too.  We are still picking only a small fraction of the okra, 
but I intend to make progress there in coming weeks.  Both peppers and 
eggplant are doing very well.  Just finished planting some Fall 
tomatoes, about 1000 SunMasters.  I started picking figs a few days 
ago.  Rainy weather has really been good for them, but it has not 
revived the fig plants I let die last year.  With no pressure to 
harvest peaches and blackberries, I have started trying to clean up 
some onions and dig some potatoes.  The potatoes are still in pretty 
good shape, but the onions are mostly bad.

6/18/7
"One armed paper hanger" now has new meaning for me.
We are about through with peaches and blackberry production has 
declined greatly.  Tomorrow is our last PYO day.
A lot of stuff is still going un-picked from lack of labor.  We have 
been concentrating on the higher value crops of peaches, blackberries, 
and tomatoes.  I pick a few peppers, beans, and eggplant in spare 
moments.  There is starting to be a lot of okra, but we have so far 
picked none.  Most of my sparse crop of potatoes remains un-dug.  I have 
a lot of onions in the barns, but we are not putting labor into 
cleaning them up for sale.  I let long beans go for a week before I 
started trying to pick them; I am now trying to keep up with them.  
Peppers look really great; I would guess that I'm picking no more than 
half of them.
I hope to get some peas planted soon.  Actually, I hoped to get some 
planted two weeks ago.  So we will have something to sell when tomatoes 
decline.

5/19/7
FlordaKings are now gone.  As are the next variety, JunePrince.  Next 
up: Delta, SouthernPearl, and LaPercher.  We had a very nice crop of 
FlordaKing; JunePrince made some nice peaches, but not as many.  
SouthernPearl will be our first white variety of the season.  We had 
quite a bit of brown rot on the FlordaKings, so I'm going to get some 
fungicide on the rest of the varieties.
Blackberries started a couple of weeks ago and are now up to 8-10 
gallons a day; we will probably open for PYO next week when we get up 
to more than 20 gallons a day.  Maybe Thursday.  Maybe Saturday.  Maybe 
Sunday.  Sign up for my email newsletter and get the breaking news.
Hours will be 9am until 11am and we will be open Saturdays, Sundays, 
Tuesdays, and Thursdays.
We picked a few Juliette tomatoes yesterday.  The bigger varieties are 
still a week or more away from starting.
I have only a single picker, so much of our less profitable crops are 
likely to go un-harvested.  We quit picking asparagus this week.  I 
have a lot of un-harvested onions in the field; I'm just pulling as 
many as I personally have time to do.

4/23/7
Peaches are coming a bit sooner than expected.  I now hope to have some 
FloradaKings at the Sunset Valley market 4/28.
Berries continue to do well, though they need both pruning and weeding. 
Labor is short.  I've recently noticed a few black, that is ripe, 
dewberries.  None of the domestic berries are showing any sign of 
ripening, but I expect them to start in 2-3 weeks.  Still, I plan not 
to open for PYO until the end of May.
We continue to suffer from the Killer Rain that we had about 3/12.  
We've been almost out of arugula, most that we should be picking now 
was washed away.  We are selling carrots that are dark on the upper 
inch or so; that is due to sun exposure where surrounding soil was 
washed away.  Many onions and garlic, that weren't washed away, are 
hanging on by a few roots and remain stunted.  Estimated potato crop 
remains at about 10% due to horribly wet conditions.  As it turns out, 
the Killer Rain and the hail that come with it put an end to the 
spinach; I had hoped for recovery.
Some onion tops have fallen over, indicating maturity, so we will be 
having a lot of onions soon.
Regular and persistent rain makes weed control by cultivation almost 
ineffective.
Asparagus production has slowed from 20-30 lb/day to 5-8 lb/day.

4/16/7
The first of April, I sent my first newsletter of the year.  Read it 
here:
http://austinfarm.org/pipermail/homegrown_austinfarm.org/2007-April/000008.html
Peaches now are mostly thinned.  We've got at least 1/2 of a crop on 
all varieties.  All in all, a very promising crop.  I expect our first 
variety, FlordaKing, to start in 2-3 weeks.
Blackberries still look good; they are now past full bloom.
I expect to open for PYO berries around the end of May.

3/14/7
Spring.  Blackberries are coming out, peaches are blooming or past, 
same for pears.  Trying to get serious about planting tomatoes and 
peppers.

We just had a big setback.  An estimated 10 inches of rain in just a 
few hours.  New dam failed leaving a 6-8' deep gully.  Planting beds 
flattened leaving much of the onions, garlic, beets, and radishes 
either washed away or hanging on by their roots.  Crops had been doing 
fairly well; we were well into our spinach.  Either hail or just heavy 
rain shredded larger leaves of spinach and other greens.  It will take 
a week or longer for recovery.  That was day before yesterday; 
yesterday, we got another (slow) inch.  Forecast is for a week of dry 
weather; it will be appreciated.  It will be several days before 
any tractor work can be done.  We have two kinds of water: 1) none and 
2) way too much.

Got the Purple Passion asparagus planted.  Newly planted asparagus is 
up and the older plantings are producing well.
Potatoes are not yet up, but I expect to see them any day now.

2/19/7
Winter.  What can I say?  Not a lot happening.  Got 3000 Jersey Knight 
asparagus planted.  Waiting for 2000 Purple Passion to arrive.  Just 
planted about an acre of potatoes; maybe 1/2 acre worth of seed 
potatoes left.  Planted the first of the tomatoes today.  Those would 
be "sacrificial"; there is a good chance they will not survive.  
Pulling some carrots from the first planting; the 2nd and 3rd plantings 
are sparse so we will likely be short of carrots in another couple of 
weeks.  Arugula is a bright spot, I am selling 400-500 bunches a week.  
We weekly pull enough green garlic for the Sunset Valley market.  
Plenty of onions and garlic coming.  Friend David Pitre gave me some 
elephant garlic and leeks, so I have those coming.  Found a new 
transplant grower to replace the un-reliable Peterson Bro.  He has a 
bunch of my seed.  And, he is half the distance to Peterson.

Chard is surprisingly popular.  We are keeping it picked down to 
nubbins and hoping it starts growing faster.  We have two kinds of 
mustard which is considerably less popular.  Spinach is still lagging, 
most of it is going to Sunset Valley.

"No good deed goes un-punished":  Some of my neighbors were buying 
year-old rained on hay that I had planned on using as mulch to feed 
their horses.  I offered them some grazing if they would electric fence 
it off and keep the horses out of the crop areas.  After the horses 
spent three days tromping around on my crops, I made them haul the 
horses off.
1/3/7
Time keeps flowing on.  Whether we want it to, or not.
Spring planting plans are in the works.  Long time transplant grower, 
Peterson Brothers in San Antonio, has not been treating me well and I 
plan to get transplants grown this year by the greenhouse place in 
Martindale.  Some seeds are ordered, others soon.
I planted 1,000 new asparagus last year; they are doing well and I plan 
to plant about 5,000 more this Spring.  Next year, perhaps the old 
asparagus will be abandoned.  I just mowed the old asparagus, it looks 
pretty good.  I did a better than normal job of weeding last year.  
Lots of winter weeds are coming on; I need to get some 24D on them.
I plan to not go to the Georgetown markets this year.  I may pick up 
another market or two, or I may just make do with only Sunset Valley.
I have some old vegetable fields that have not been planted in a couple 
of years.  That's due to both relatively poor soil and deer exposure.  
I've been thinking of planting some pecans there.  Trees seem to be in 
short supply; I'll be looking for some.
Currently, we are pulling some garlic, picking small amounts of 
spinach, better amounts of mustard, some chard, all the arugula that I 
want.  Some crops are just now recovering from the damaging freeze we 
had a month or so ago.  Broccoli is doing poorly.  I've got a lot of 
onions in, though the ones I've direct seeded are very sparse.  
Prospects for the next couple of months: more spinach, more mustard, 
carrots, radish, continuing arugula and garlic, more chard, probably 
some beets.
Hay was a surprising crop this past year.  I planned to use much of my 
hay, especially the weedier portion, for mulch.  Hay has been in such 
short supply that I sold it all.  I made something like 1,500 square 
bales in two cuttings.  When time allows, I will be converting old 
orchard, grape and vegetable plantings to hay.
We have been getting some rains in the past few weeks.  About 4" all 
together.  Very little runoff; tanks are up a bit, but still very low.