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

Summer

This has been one weather roller coaster of a spring. Cold front after cold front for the last twelve weeks or so. Generally speaking, we get more windows of opportunity to work with as far as getting garden work done but this year has been a bit different. Seeds germinate best in soils that are not cool and wet and this spring we have had just that, ideal conditions for poor germination and we have seen that on the farm this season. Crops we sowed seed for when we had plating opportunities in April and May germinated poorly and slowly putting us "behind" compared to an average year. I would say we are about two to three weeks behind where we normally are this time of year. With that said, the boxes will be on the light side the first few weeks.
Looking at the weather ahead, I think we will finally begin to see the garden really begin to grow starting this week. So, don't be too surprised with lean boxes the next few weeks.

Recipes

It's raining again, but at least it's not snowing, so I am inside working. Once we begin our season we will have a little help from one of our members preparing our produce. Letty Flatt is a a long time Park City resident, share holder and friend, vegetarian and Executive Pastry Chef of Deer Valley. Each week she will contribute two recipes via her blog, http://muffintalk.wordpress.com/. Sue and I appreciate her taking time to add a little bit of a personal touch to our CSA program. You can visit her blog for past years recipes or visit her website, http://www.chocolatesnowball.com/, for more info. By the way Letty, thanks for the cookbook! We spent the winter trying recipes and satisfying our sweet tooth's - good thing I skied a lot because, between beer and cookies (not together) I would have gained 15 pounds!

May 19, 2011

Hi, I'm Farmer John. It's raining again...and snowing. Spring in the mountains of Utah, gotta love it; because if you don't, you should be living somewhere else!
I thought I would take a minute and update you our progress in the gardens. The cool, wet weather we have experienced this spring has not allowed us much time to get out into the garden to do field work. I am anticipating a later than average start to the season. I am guessing we will begin to deliver by the middle to end of June. We have been busy working in the greenhouses and sowing flats of seedlings indoors to transplant outside at a later date. The first round of tomatoes has been planted and we will plant round two this weekend. We have sown lettuce, spinach and a few other greens. Also in the ground are beets, onions, cabbage, shallots, leeks and beans. Our fall planted garlic crop looks happy even though the weather has not been ideal. By the way, I love garlic!
I will keep you updated on our progress and fill you in soon with some more details. Time to grab my skis and wax appropriately for another ski tour. See ya!