Whitsend Market Garden

Two shares of this season's harvest up for sale.  Contact us for detals...

Hello Everyone:

Mostly good news, but one significant piece of not so good news to start with.

The frost upset some of my early planting schedule.  Some seeds that were planted remained dormant until the soil warmed up enough.  

As such, it appears that our first two planned deliveries for June will have to push forward a week.   We'll just have to tighten our belts or go to the grocery store for another few days.

Here are the first two deliveries of your lettuces.  I have several varieties - romaine (Freckles, Xalbadora, Coastal Star, Sylvestra); and green leaf (Black Seeded Simpson, Bergams Green).  

I grow multiple varieties for each planned delivery week to even out variables such as heat causing plants going to seed too early.

If all varieties do well, you recieve a mix of different types and colors.

These are the first round of kidney beans, there are two other beds sprouting and another 3 or 4 awaiting rain to allow for a decent seeding.

I have succeeded in getting them beyond the growth stage when rodent's can nip off the terminal bud and essentially render the plants useless for growing food.  A very light application of organic castor bean oil makes the plants unpalatable for these animals.

The green beans are in a similiar state.

Extra beans - these are a half bed of romanos I decided to plant to augment the regular harvest.  Their will be a limited quantity available throughout the season.  

I didn't advertise these as I was not sure if the old seed stock I had was still viable. 

Not all the news is good:  These are the peas, going to seed much earlier than they are supposed to (they should not be flowering until about mid June).  I assume this is due to heat stress from last week.

I don't know how I am going to manage this early crop, much depends on how long it continues to grow and flower, and if it is able to set enough pods for a full harvest.  Until then, I'll keep tending them and just wait and see.

Here is your kale, arugula, and tokyo bekana interplanted underneath insect netting.  I've interplanted them to save space.  The arugula and bekana will be harvested for the first delivery, before the kale grows so much to shade out the other crops.  

The netting keeps out flea beatles.  These minute insects  could overwhelm the kale before it is old enough to outgrow the damage; and fill the arugulas with little holes that in turn will reduce the leaves shelf life.

Tokyo bekana is a close relative of arugula, milder and loftier.  I'll be mixing the two together for your harvests.

This is one way the extended lack of rain is causing disruptions for me.  I have these beds ready for the next round of potato planting.  

I don't want to plant the tubers in extremely dry soil, as their moisture will attract the wire worms and lawn grubs, who in turn could either eat the seed tuber before it can start growing the plant, or damage the potatoes as they develop.

If we don't get rain very soon, I'll have to take my chances and manually water A LOT to keep the soil moist.  

Is this the future of farming?

We'll find a way...farmers grew food through the pandemic.  They continued working the fields in during WW2, plowing around the wrecks of planes and tanks.  New varieties of crops were developed during the solar minimum (snow peas in England).  Crops were even grown - though admittedly not very well - during the "year without a summer", 1816.

We'll find a way!