Farm Update June 25, 2017

As I write this I am hunkered down inside the TinyHouse trying to beat the heat. I harvested until a little after noon when the temperature climbed above 100 degrees. It is 105 out there right now. Of course, those of you living in Tucson have had to endure much higher temperatures.

I am currently running sprinklers in the field, moving them every hour or so to cool off the plants. I have been doing this all week. So far, the bush beans have fared the worse in the heat. About a quarter of the bean plants in one bed has perished – they just couldn’t deal with the 110+ heat earlier in the week. Luckily another bed of bush beans has survived okay. The greens beds are also suffering a bit, but there are some new beds on the way.

The plants in the high tunnel are doing much better as the 40% shade cloth is keeping it significantly cooler in there. They are still subject to the hot winds we have had the last few afternoons, but the sprinklers help quite a bit.

The onset of the monsoon should occur soon – can’t happened quickly enough for me! We have already had some decent cloud build-ups and a brief shower. I was in Sierra Vista Tuesday evening and there was a nice rain just after sunset.

We’ll see you this Sunday at the market and Monday at our Green Valley/Sahuarita CSA drop off.

clouds building over the Whetstone Mountains
red&green lettuce with rattlesnake

Farm Update January 21, 2017

Another weekend and another winter storm. The wind blew through here at gale force around 2am this morning. Some minor damage occurred in our field, a few broccoli leaves broke off, some of the rowcovers blew off and many of the supporting hoops are bent a little, but nothing major. We had a little snow blowing around late in the evening mixed in with the rain, but no snow accumulated.

As a reminder, the delivery this weekend marks the beginning of the second half of our winter CSA season and the second half payment is due for those shareholders who chose to pay in 2 installments. Thank you for the half-season payments already received.

We’ll see you at the markets!

img_1092_winterstormclosinginonthewhetstones-copy
Winter storm closing in on the Whetstones