May Brings On The Heat

Farm News

Ok, so let’s recap! January was crazy wet & cold. February was the coldest & snowiest on record. March was the driest on record. April had the most consecutive day of rain. And now, here we are in May with a full-on heat wave: dry, windy and 86 degrees. It’s no wonder why farming is so hard and why flora and fauna are struggling to find resiliency.

If this is indeed an El Nino year, May is playing with a different map. Our job is not to complain or try to predict, rather we are gracious tenants and thankful for the land and resources to grow veggies here in the Pacific Northwest. It is truly a gift to work here in mother nature’s house. The feeling of a full day’s work completely exhausted at the end is what thrusts us into the next day all over again.

This week we thinned out all our chard plants in the greenhouse and continued to keep up with watering and transplanting. Our first radish harvest was spectacular with reds and purples popping out of the ground. The cucumber beetles have arrived in earnest, as we will keep spinach and radishes covered in our thin white row cover allowing sun and water to penetrate, but no bugs allowed. This is one of our strongest bug management strategies in the organic world. Barrier method is steadfast and easy, but impossible to use on all 135 acres, as the cost would be astronomical. Along with crop rotations, trap plantings and healthy starts in the greenhouse we feel we have the upper hand.

Ziggy and Fidencio have been heavy-duty lifting all the irrigation pipe to set up for our overhead sprinklers to quench the new transplants. This is an incredibly hard job in the beginning of the season, but it pays off immeasurably throughout the hot summer months. As we enjoy the summer-like weather, we are hoping it doesn’t persist quite this warm, but instead, we will ask it to return in July.

Don’t forget to find us on Instagram @fullcirclefarms.

Wendy