June 25

Nice pleasant cloudy morning to harvest for CSA and tomorrow's farmer's market in PC. It might officially be summer but we've still had several decent frosts in the last couple of weeks. It's not atypical for us to freeze this time of the year but we most likely will be frost free now until sometime in late August to early September; a whopping 60+ days frost free...not a tomato grower's paradise. For the most part the temps have not been extreme one way or the other. The wind, however, has been wreaking havoc and thrashing the greens a bit. Speaking of thrashing the greens, we battle a soil dwelling insect called the flea beetle. Flea beetles love to dine on all the spicy greens we grow: arugula, mustard greens plus radish and turnips. We combat them by using "floating row-covers", a spun polyester fabric that acts as a barrier and covers the crop needing protection. Sometime the little buggers still find there way under the covers though! It is purely cosmetic damage to the greens in your box. There are a host of chemical insecticides we could use but who wants to eat poison?!?

Here are a few photos from this morning on the farm in Hoytsville (Dog Holler).

Spring In The Holler

Weeding Carrots

Oakley Pano