Farmer Friday

cabbage and mustard seedlings in a low tunnel

The weather has been really crazy this year. While I don't think our hottest summer day beat the 115 degrees we had in June last year I think we have had a lot more days that were 95+ this year. 20 years ago we would have had a killing frost by Halloween and possibly seen some snow by Thanksgiving. Here it is November 30 and it hasn't even frosted. At all. Nada. Not even close. I still have somewhat productive zucchini and a few straggling cherry tomatoes. Hard to keep to my planting schedule when plants aren't coming out on time. I do have 2 low tunnels covered with frost cloth. In one are red and green cabbages, red mustard and I just took out the little patch of baby pak choi. I replaced it with rainbow beets.

Fava beans and red mustard

The other low tunnel is mostly fava beans and more mustard. I don't sell a lot of mustard greens but the chickens, especially the young ones love their greens. Mustard is hardy, grows year round and is easy to grow. tucked in between other things in both tunnels is cilantro. both of these pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago, so the plants are a lot bigger now.

funny looking pumpkins

I haven't been selling many of my funny looking pumpkins so I started feeding them to the chickens, who enjoy them tremendously. First they fight over the seeds and then they eat the meat, leaving a paper thin bit of rind.

baby turnips and greens

The turnips are growing well. But they are not the best sellers so I will not plant so many of them next time. But the chickens do like them, roots, greens and all.

spinach seedlings

It has finally cooled off enough that the spinach is finally sprouting. But it's still been too hot for the lettuce.

I pulled the rest of the turnips this morning. Some had gotten quite large. 

It's hard to believe there are still cherry tomatoes. These were late volunteers so maybe next year I'll plant some late on purpose. 

There are still a few Red Kuri squash to pick. These have been very popular with my customers. 

This is an avocado seedling. It is over a year old and has lived through one winter already. If it makes it through this winter I will put it in its own pot. There are two more in there but they aren't very big yet.