Everywhere you look this past week, the landscape just screamed “New England fall.” Bright fall foliage (mostly), clear skies, crisp apples, and butternut squash and pumpkins. Meanwhile, the lack of a hard frost means that the fall crops keep trucking along, with peppers, broccoli, some crazy nice lettuce and salad mix, and even tomatoes in great abundance. The…
Even when the end of the season seems to cruise along as nicely as this one has, we know there will be some bumps in the road, and this late in the year that bump tends to be the first frost. So last Monday, when we saw lows in the 30’s forecasted for later in the…
Another week of sunny, bright days and pleasant temperatures has me feeling like we have been beamed over to California. It’s made bringing in the harvest so much easier since we were able to get in the field EVERY day this September. This is good, because even though it was a very hot summer, we got enough…
We flipped the calendar to fall on Monday, but the first day of leaf season came on the heels of a late-season heat wave. The warm dry weather (and lots of timely irrigation) has juiced the growth of our fall crops, and we have some really great late season lettuce and cooking greens this week. We’ve binned…
The late-summer beautiful weather streak keeps on chugging, bringing us warm days, cool nights, and an amazing pile of work to try to get through each week. September is always a tough month for us, because our “summer crew” folks leave, but the task list actually increases. While we still have summer crops like cukes and…
The last week has made it abundantly clear that fall is in the air. Cool nights, heavy morning dew, and warm, clear days have made the work very pleasant. I think these are the kinds of days people refer to when they think wistfully about having an “outside job,” conveniently forgetting the days when your sweat soaks…
August is behind us, school starts up, and temperatures moderate, but summer is not quite over! We still have plenty of cherry and beefsteak tomatoes, although the heirlooms are in a bit of a recovery mode. Peppers are coming in strong, with fall favorites like leeks and celeriac coming out of the fields. We’ve got one block of…
As we head into the final days of August, the cooler nights of late feel downright brisk compared to the intense heat of just a week ago. It’s a welcome break for both people and our lettuce crops. Meanwhile, the crops keep pouring in. The next 3 or 4 weeks are often the most abundant harvests on our…
This week’s newsletter comes to you from 5th season Fort Hill Farm veteran, Lauren Henderson. Lauren is doing a great job as the field manager, running the day-to-day tasks and making sure we actually get everything done. Her enthusiasm for organic vegetables shows in her writing: August is one of my favorite times on the farm,…
Last week we got another one of those “hail Mary” rains that gives you a break from irrigating but moves through quickly enough not to bring on lots of foliar diseases in the crops. This gave us some time to put down the pipe and catch up on some weeding. With so many planting and harvesting tasks…
So far the growing season can be summed up as 3 months of flood followed by 2 months of drought. Even with the big swings in weather, crops continue to look good. We are at “peak tomato,” as the crew brought in a huge harvest of heirloom tomatoes and sungold cherry tomatoes today. We will be able…
Lots of heat with the occasional rain is a good recipe for lots of sweet corn, juicy tomatoes, crispy cukes, versatile eggplant, and some big sweet Ailsa Craig onions. Throw in some timely irrigation, and the lettuce, salad mix, and chard will join the party as well. Time for some pickin’ and grinning on the farm! The…
Last week the main driver on the farm was HEAT. Since working in the field in the afternoon felt like wearing 20 pound weights on your legs, we got going an hour earlier to make full use of the cooler morning air, and carried on. We start harvest with lettuce, chard, kale, and herbs, since they are…
Sometimes the Farm News breaks down into a “there’s so much rain we can’t get in the fields and all our crops are rotting” or “it hasn’t rained, and we are irrigating like crazy” dichotomy. Not to be a broken record, but we are definitely in the latter camp. The very wet April, May, and June are…
Summer paid us a visit last week, bringing some warm temperatures and ground dry enough to cultivate and hoe. Fairly quickly, we were back in irrigation mode. Our sandy soil has a short memory, and once we go 4 days without a soaking rain, we need to add the water ourselves. The farm is almost at cruising…