Week of October 13, 2014
Abbreviated Weekly Farm Report
From Friendship Farms & Fare
A Community Service To the Local Farming Community
Garden Overview
We are in a transitional period, and harvests are light. This will continue until the end of the month. Rick Martinez reported that his seedlings were washed out or stunted and his farm (Sweetwater in Tampa) is about two weeks behind schedule. So are we.
Just as with other growers, our summer crops are largely spent and the fall crops are just getting started. It will be weeks before big harvests start coming in. In addition, like Rick and others, we had a real set back with the unseasonable rains of the past few weeks.
Okra is declining quickly now, and the harvest is shrinking dramatically. We may not have enough okra for shares this week. Seed pods are gigantic, and we harvested more of those for next year’s seeds. Sweet potatoes are still being harvested, and the leaves are still good. We noticed more eggplant fruit this week, and we may have enough for all shares.
The end of the heavy rains afforded an opportunity to resume our re-seeding project. We lost about 70% of the seedlings from our first seeding, and another 10% are very week. The good part of the story is that we have planted most of the remaining 20%, and they are doing well.
We received a great assist from our friendship farm, Cadle’s Cove Farm. Cindy of Cadle’s Cove shared 28 well-established kale seedlings with us, in exchange for sweet potatoes. Here is a link to Cadle’s Cove: http://ceeceesfarm.locallygrown.net/
Fall Planning and First Plantings
We are beginning to recover from our early challenges. We have installed kales and collards, which are maturing nicely. Swiss chard is still lagging a bit, although some Ford Hook Giant is showing signs of health and happiness. As expected, the famous Calabrese is taking off, although we lost most of our original seedlings in the unusual deluges of recent weeks. Arugula is taking off.
As recommend by the Florida Department of Agriculture, and various commercial planting guides, we planted fall and winter crops at the recommended time. However, rather than the cooling and drying conditions we should have had, we continued to experience full-on summer weather patterns – heat, humidity, and heavy rains. The new climate-change weather renders current planting calendars obsolete. We need new and revised planting guides that take into account climate change.
As noted above, we returned to our fall seeding this week, and started a considerable number of seeds. We will continue seeding and installing seedlings in the gardens this week. Our collards are making the best progress, and we have a number of healthy little plants.
The first plants into the garden are kales, collards, broccoli, and arugula.
In recent years, September and even October have been too hot for the cool weather crops to develop. Nonetheless, we have renewed our seed starting and garden transplants, and continue to hope that temperatures and precipitation get closer to their historical norms. The coming week will be very helpful in this regard.
This fall we are going heavier on the cool-weather greens than we have in the past – collards, kale, and swiss chard. Our new experimental crop this fall is 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 last major sweet potato harvest will be this weekend
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 generous plants who have sustained us since we first made them our companions 10,000 years ago.
Sweet Potatoes
Harvest Continues
We harvested 32 lbs of sweet potatoes this week. The total harvest is now 213 lbs.
Shares can expect sweet potatoes this week. All the New South beds are harvested and we finished harvesting one of the Old North beds, and most of a second. We have two beds to harvest.
COMPANION FAUNA
Where are the bees?
We observed only one honeybee this past week. This is really concerning. One of their favorite treats is loquat blossoms – and we have an abundance of those right now. When flowering, these trees are usually swarming with bees. We continue to expect to see these helpful creatures on the loquat flowers, which they love. There are also flowers on many native plants in the gardens – lantana, golden dewdrop, salvia, porter weed, and begger’s ticks. The solitary bee was observed flitting between the flowers in a little patch of begger’s tick.
It is possible that the release of commercial/residential “home and garden” insecticides containing neonicotinoids are destroying our once abundant honeybee populations. This is just a guess offered in an effort to understand what has happened to these important companions to human life.
“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”
– attributed to Albert Einstein.
Please do not purchase or use insecticides with neonicotinoids. Here are three reliable sources on the neonicotinoids, and the commercial “home and garden” insecticides that contain them.
http://www.xerces.org/neonicotinoids-and-bees/
http://www.xerces.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/NeonicsSummary_XercesSociety.pdf
http://www.xerces.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Are-Neonicotinoids-Killing-Bees_Xerces-Society1.pdf
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
