Week of September 22, 2014
Abbreviated Weekly Farm Report
From Friendship Farms & Fare
A Community Service To the Local Farming Community
Garden Overview
Summer is coming to a close. As just noted, fall begins on September 23. The summer crops seem to know what is coming, although many perhaps most people do not. The Okra plants are in decline and more expired this week. The okra harvest is shrinking dramatically. A month ago we were harvesting close to 10 pounds of okra each week, now we are down to about 2 pounds. Seed pods are gigantic, and this week we harvest the first of those for next year’s seeds. More sweet potato leaves are yellowing, and harvest time has passed. Eggplant is producing rather well, and there are still numerous buds on the plants. We harvested okra yesterday, and we’ll dig more sweet potatoes today.
We did relatively little seeding for the fall.
Fall Planning and First Plantings
We took a break from fall seeding this week due to the heavy rains and overly damp conditions. We will postpone our initial fall plantings another week at least (to 9/29). The young collards and swiss chard we installed in planters last past week were washed out in the rains. For full details on this week’s plantings, see the seeding and planting summary later in the Farm Report.
We’ll try to include an image of some of our seedlings, which we moved inside due to the heavy rains.
The first plants into the garden will be kales, collards, and broccoli. We will definitely plant arugula, whose seeds have generated with enthusiasm.
This is an early planting, judging from the new climate-change weather patterns, although it is consistent with recommendations from Florida Department of Agriculture and several planting calendars. We need new and revised planting guides that take into account climate change.
In recent years, September and even October have been too hot for the cool weather crops to develop. Nonetheless, we are again taking our chances and hoping for temperatures closer to historical norms. If it is too hot and the seedlings do not flourish, we’ll start others later in the season.
This fall we’ll go heavier on the cool-weather greens than we have in the past – collards, kale, and swiss chard. Our new experimental crop this fall will be spinach. Of course, we’ll have a healthy planting of arugula, and the famous Calabrese. Bell peppers will be planted in October, and we expect our habaneros to continue their irrepressible ways. We’ll forego cauliflower, and go heavy on broccoli. Tomatoes will be testers only, and only in set asides in the South Garden. Septoria has just been too hard on our tomatoes in previous years. For all plantings, we’ll use seeds from our collection or heirloom seeds from Seed Savers Exchange (http://www.seedsavers.org/).
Summer Wrap Up
As noted above, the summer farming season is coming to an end. Okra harvests are shrinking each week, and will continue to diminish. The plants themselves are perishing. The sweet potato leaves are yellowing, and the wilting earlier each day it does not rain.
It continues to amaze how well the plants know their seasons and their life-spans. If only we knew our life and purpose as well as these – the generous plants who have sustained us since we first made them our companions 10,000 years ago.
We will be putting energy into harvesting sweet potatoes over the next two weeks. Sweet potatoes are the most challenging and physically taxing crop to harvest. The reward is worth the labor, but there is a weight to the work, unlike the lighter labor of seeding, transplanting, and installing young plants in the garden. It looks like the eggplant may hold on for several more weeks.
Pre-Season Loquat Budding
Exciting News About Two Young Trees
As first noted three weeks ago, our loquat trees have early buds, including two of our young trees (less than three years old), which were grown from seeds of our existing trees. There are more buds on the trees this year than we’ve ever seen before, and now some of the buds have formed flowers.
Summer budding is not uncommon, although the regular (and full) budding season is late fall. In the fall, budding is generalized and buds (then flowers, then fruit) cover the entire tree – a beautiful show. The summer buds are happy reminders of the abundance to come later in the year, but these early buds do not lead to fruit – at least not in our experience.
Most resource sites on loquats (few though they may be) report that trees started from seed do not produce fruit for at least five years. Some report that the trees grown from seed do not produce for ten years or longer, and some report trees-from-seeds never produce fruit – but are attractive ornamentals.
These two young trees are a long way from producing fruit, but this budding is occurring at the same time as the pre-seasonal budding of all the local trees that regularly produce fruit in season. It remains to be seen if these two trees will bud, flower, and produce fruit next spring, but if they do, they will be true champions, sharing their first harvest two full years earlier than the earliest possible date given in the literature. This will definitely be something to celebrate – and publicize!
Okra
As noted previously, harvests continue to decrease. Gradually, the plants are perishing, and there are fewer each week that are very strong and vigorous.
This past week we harvested 2¼ pounds, bringing our total for the season to 92½ lbs., total. Last week’s harvest is the lightest since our early harvests in June. Last year we harvested a total of 31 pounds. We have adjusted our target upward (from 50 pounds) to 100 pounds this year. It now appears that we will probably just miss the target. Still, this is an impressive harvest.
Sweet Potatoes
Harvest Continues
We harvested 4½ lbs of sweet potatoes last week. The total harvest stands at 163½ lbs.
We began harvesting one of the Old North beds last week, and we’ll aim to finish it this week. Counting that bed, we have four more beds to harvest.
The Old North beds are all regeneration plants; that is, plants that sprouted from roots and missed fruit from last year. Many were coming up in the north beds, so we collected regeneration plants from other beds and transplanted them to there. The fruit coming from the Old North we are working on now are beautiful, and free of all blemishes.
Planting & Harvest Notes
Start of Fall Seeding
Seedings: Kale, Scarlet, SS (28, soil blocks)
Garden Starts: none – rained out
Harvest Notes: okra, sweet potatoes, herbs, arugula, bell peppers, eggplant
3F Produce for non-shareholders
Non-shareholders may order shares for $12 per week. For this nominal amount, contributors may request any items they desire from the weekly Share. Although we will assist with transmissions, it is the responsibility of the contributor to make arrangements for pick up of the share.
As always, non-shareholders may request single items from the share list for $5 per item. A full share for one week (any/all items) is $12.
Just reply using the website contact link if you desire anything on the list. We suggest non-shareholders start an account to cover costs of items.
The 3F Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Project
Friendship Farms & Fare operates a unique small-scale (boutique) CSA, involving few participants, and using very basic management techniques. We are 100% organic and use permacultrures principles. Our program is recommended for single persons, couples, or (at most) three-person families. The cost of a share is low by typical CSA standards: $300 per garden year (October through September). This works out to a bit less than $6.00 per week. Donations are also gratefully received, with all donations going to maintenance and improvement of the gardens and groves.
If you are interested, contact: friendshipfarmsfare@gmail.com
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Visit the Friendship Farms & Fare website for the Weekly Farm Report:
http://www.fffsite.org/#!report/c1tuh
Friendship Farms & Fare is a branch of Ecology Florida, a not-for-profit corporation. Contributions to Friendship Farms & Fare and Ecology Florida are tax deductible. To learn more about Ecology Florida, please visit the website:
http://www.ecologyflorida.org/
If you would like to support our mission and individual projects, you may share donations through our website (above) or at our mailing address:
Ecology Florida
PO Box 596
New Port Richey, FL 34656-0596
Friendship Farms & Fare reaffirms, restores, and advances agrarian ideals to reestablish a sustainable culture
Ecology Florida advances the harmonious integration of healthy natural, cultural, and economic ecologies to regenerate a resilient world
