Nature's whims
Greetings, friends.
This week’s cold weather really slowed things down on the farm! Blooming has come to a near halt in this latter portion of the week, and we’re cutting just about every stem on the farm in an attempt to fulfill our orders. We’re barely scraping by to meet needed stem counts, and keeping our fingers crossed that the weather will improve at least a little bit after the weekend. We’ve got one more big week of orders and weddings ahead of us, and after that we’ll accept that nature wants to slow things down! We’re all just working at the whims of mother nature, doing the best we can to get by.
The smaller harvest mean that we have more time for bed prep, planting, and beginning to put the farm to bed for the winter. It’s been much cooler than is normal for our area at this point in the season, so it feels like we might be a bit ahead in terms of crop removal and winter cover cropping. That said, since we need every flower we can get, we’re hesitant to do too much crop removal. We’ve got a couple beds of cosmos that are probably giving us 5 decent stems a day and while we’d normally go ahead and remove the crop, we held off this week due to our desperation.
Dave and Ali, using wiggle wire to secure the new plastic to the high tunnel.
The highlight of the week was re-skinning the high tunnel that we removed the plastic from earlier this summer. It’s necessary to remove the plastic from tunnels every 5-6 years to flush out salt buildup in the soil by exposing the tunnel to rainfall, and to replace plastic, which begins to break down after years of exposure to the elements. On Tuesday we stretched the fresh plastic layer over the tunnel and gave our crops a nice, cozy home for the winter. The weather was perfect for the task, and our crew did an amazing job of working together to get it done quickly and beautifully. I’ve skinned many a tunnel in my time working on farms, and this was the fastest and most fun the job’s ever been. And none of our crew had ever done it before! We’re so lucky to work with such a solid crew.
Hairy balls in the mornign light.
Pawpaw Popups
We’re back at the JFX market on Sunday from 7:00-12:00.
This week’s market stand will feature bouquets, bunches of celosia, dahlias, eucalyptus, hairy balls, and millet. The produce selection will feature edible flowers, PAWPAWS, shishitos, and basil.
Don’t let the rain keep you away—It’s likely the last week for pawpaws and shishitos at the market!
Thanks for reading!
Take care,
Amelia and the rest of the Two Boots crew
Spooky, longing for some snacks.
We’ve celebrated the emergence of many monarch butterflies this week.
My viewpoint as i fed the plastic roll over the top of the high tunnel.