Tuesday, April 29, 2008

April flurries bring May berries (?)

How about this crazy weather? Snow forecast for tomorrow evening... the eve of May Day.
The Siskiyou Coop growers met last week and decided to delay the first CSA delivery to Thursday, April 12th. Most crops have been growing more slowly than usual, and other crops haven't even been transplanted yet. The CSA will still run for twenty weeks, making the last delivery date on Thursday, October 23rd.
The erratic weather has been a challenge for us at Wolf Gulch. Tom spent several nights waking up each hour to check the temperature in case the mercury dipped below 28, which was the critical temperature for our pear, apple and plum blossoms. On Sunday morning, April 20th, the temperature got down to 28 at about 4:30 am, and Tom went out to light our 16 orchard heaters (called smudge pots by some.) It took him an hour to light them all, and then he stayed up until 7:30 making sure they continued to burn.
The lettuce I transplanted last month finally showed signs of growth after this past weekend of sunshine.
Siskiyou Coop growers, Melissa and Josh of Barking Moon Farm, are well ahead of the curve and bringing all kinds of crops to the Ashland Growers Market on Tuesdays. They started seeding in their greenhouse on the first of February and covered a lot of their field crops with remay to provide some protections. Melissa reports that the slug damage is significantly worse this year- probably a result of such wet conditions. Luckily, like all good growers, they overplanted and have plenty of high quality produce to sell.