Note to self:

Next year, don't plant watermelons and cucumbers next to each other. Two creeping, vining, tentacle having plants don't coexist well. A bunch of cucumbers and melons got lost in there and now they are sprouting and becoming weeds themselves. The spiral seed in the second picture is fillaree. It is also one of the few weeds that is Roundup proof.

Lil Finger Carrots

Ever wonder why the CSA boxes contain large carrots and baby carrots? These carrots are of the "lil' finger" variety and you can see that not all of the lil fingers grow at the same rate. Most of the varieties that we plant are open pollinated which means they come from breeders that have not manipulated the parent plants to produce hybrid crosses. Basically the plants are just left to flower and produce seed on their own and then the seed is collected. There are advantages and disavantages to using open pollinated seeds. The downside is that there can be a good deal of variation in the size a vigor of the plants but overall the crop is pretty good. The upside is that when these plants produce seeds, we can plant them next year and get a pretty good crop again. On the other hand, Hybrid seeds produce a very uniform crop the first year, but if the resulting seeds are collected, the next years crop will have tonnes of variation and not be nearly as vigorous as the previous year. Sometime hybrids produce very little viable seed at all.

Growing open pollinated varieties and saving the seeds, is the first step to breeding new varieties of plants that are better suited to growing in our climate. So that one day, we will have our own Callaloo Carrots, that thrive in sandy organic soil during hot Indian summers, and grow quickly under our clear skies and warm spring weather, yet can withstand sitting in the a trough of cold air for a few hours in the early morning.

Radishes and Oats

Here you can see oats threatening to overgrow daikon radishes. One would think that very few weeds could outcompete the extra fast growing radish. But last year this field was a thriving pasture of mostly oats. Now oats and other grasses are the main weed problem. At least the isles were clean. The best tool for weed control is good water management. Unfortunately that tool only works during the summer.

This picture was taken back in august of a storm coming over the hill from the south east. This was right between 2 weeks of 100+ days. You can see the tops of the corn that got dried out by the hot wind. The crop in front is popcorn that grew to be 7 feet tall over the next month but was killed by frost right as it was finishing up. And in the center are a few rows of squash. The squirres ate this section back back to just stems at one point but then it grew back into a jungle and produced maybe 100 butternuts and 50 acorns.

Chard and Favas

The two rows of chard in the front have been producing for the last month or so. Im amazed that frost hasn't gotten them yet. After the last 2 storms a thick layer of ice surrounded the leaves. Later on, some of the outside leaves wilt but there are always nice leaves inside. The real trick with chard is to keep them pruned so that the stalks grow the right size. If the plant starts to get to large then even the young leaves with start off growing wtih 2 inch wide stalks with just a little green leafy bit and it won't sell.

Behind the chard is the sllooow growing fava beans. The top pic was taken before the

wind storm last weekend. Here is an after picture. Can you see the whole crop leaning at a 45 degree angle.

Weedy Lettuce

Here is some oak leaf lettuce that has just been thinned to 6" spacing. 6 inches is a little close and can make the plants susceptible to bugs and diseases. Nothing seems to be bothering the lettuce right now so i'm going to let them crowd together to shade out the weeds. Lettuce is not to far removed from its ancient ancestor and does a pretty good job of pest control on its own. a few weeds don't hurt when harvesting head or leaf lettuce but if this was a row of salad mix then every single weed would have to be picked out by hand. That is partly why the prebagged stuff costs so much. There are still a few weeds so a 3rd and final trip through hoe should keep it weed free for another 3 weeks until harvest.