Looking over the fields

We'll be picking some early strawberries to take to market this week.  Yesterday was a blistering 90+ degrees with lots of wind & the berries ripened as I watched (and we had a lovely compote of fresh strawberries & bananas and frozen blueberries for dessert - yum!).  The temperatures going forward are much more moderate - with even a potential frost one night (in our low-lying field).  Moderate is good for the berries.  Too much heat & they ripen faster than we can pick them and before they can grow big & fat.  However, we can get by for an entire week with no more rain... the drought of last fall is completely broken, we've had record rainfall for the month of May (and our basement hasn't flooded once -- hurray!), but now we need things to dry up a little bit.

This will be our 9th year selling fruit from SRF.  Our mailing list has grown to over 1000 names, and I'm finally biting the bullet and have contracted with a company to create an email list.  Earlier this year I set up a Facebook page for the farm and I'm trying to post on it occasionally.  The website that I created years ago is still our main focus on the interwebs, but FB is a force that must be acknowledged.  I'll be putting up a sign at the checkout stand for people to 'Like' us on FB.  The average age of our customers is probably about 50 or so, but every year we get new, younger people coming out to pick or buy berries.  And there are a lot of 50+ folks on FB now, too.

This will be the earliest we have ever started picking strawberries.  Including the 10+ years of Bill's Backyard Berries in White Bear Lake. 

My  journey through the orchard was a sad one, as it has been since April 10 when the frost hit the blossoming trees.  If we get 5 bushel of Honeycrisp I'll be amazed (a 'normal' harvest would be 250-300 bushel).  The SweeTango dropped most of their apples, too, so not much help from them this year.  They, however, are still young trees, and we wouldn't want too much crop on them anyway.  The Zestar! put out some new blossoms after the frost, and there may actually be more Zestar! than we'd guessed - which was zero - but again not even 1/10 of our normal crop.  Last year not much strawberry crop, this year not much apple crop.  I wonder if we'll ever get a year where we get a good harvest from both main crops.

The raspberries look very good; it's a new patch that was planted 2 years ago & produced lightly last year.  The bees, who didn't get much out of the apple blossoms, are crazy busy in the raspberries.  Farmer Bill hopes to get a decent crop - and some sorely needed cash - out of the raspberries - which will be ready early too - before the 1st of July for sure.

Tomatoes in the hoop houses are growing like crazy.  If the pollination happens as expected Farmer Bill should have some of the first tomatoes on the market - which bring very good prices from Minnesotans starved for real tomato flavor.

The melons were transplanted last week.  One batch got planted a bit deep and is taking a bit longer to get going... the other field looks very good.  If you like cantaloupe you should really buy a locally grown & ripened cantaloupe.  Of course, then you'll never be able to buy supermarket melons again...  Did you know that cantaloupe do not ripen after they're picked?  They do soften (begin to break down), and their smell intensifies (as they spoil), but they are as sweet as they will be when they're picked.  We have to tell customers that our melons are ripe & they should NOT under ANY circumstances leave them sitting on the countertop for 3 days.  Eat them that day, cut them up and store in containers, or refrigerate them & eat within a few days.

Farmer Bill has planted peas every year for the past 4-5 years - he mostly does edible pods now, after trying shelling peas and snowpeas in the past.  Many of our strawberry customers will go out and pick a pile of peas to take home, or buy some if they're already picked.  This year the peas won't be ready until late in strawberry season so he'll have to try to sell them at markets and to raspberry customers.  And I'm not sure who's going to pick all the green beans Farmer Bill planted this year.  I'll pick enough for the two of us to eat next winter, but I really don't do picking any more - between work and home duties (and arthritis in the knees) I don't have much time.

The sweet corn is growing, but the planter struggled again this year and the fields will be a bit spotty.  I like sweet corn, but one ear once a day is enough for me.  Farmer Bill is known to eat 4 or more ears of corn at a sitting.  And he'd probably do that twice a day if he could - if he had time at lunch - or at least until his stomach rebelled. I don't mind picking sweet corn sometimes (you do it standing up, which is a plus), but it always seems like a lot of work for the return.  Sweet corn takes a lot of space on the load, and it's a lot of work to sell.  Farmer Bill grows one heritage sweet corn variety - Jubilee - that I use for freezing and we love having it in the freezer to put in soups and stews and to eat as a side dish.  It has real corn flavor as opposed to most of the new varieties that are like eating corn-flavored sugar.  But the old varieties turn starchy soon after picking, so Jubilee has to be cooled (we use well water & Farmer Bill turned our garage into a drive-in cooler) and then sold with the caveat that customers must eat it that day or the next.  It will not hold in their refrigerator all week.

Well, Farmer Bill just came in from his round of the fields & announced "There's nothing to do out there, so I came inside."  We'd better go have lunch and then get back to it... because of course there's so much more to do than we'll ever get done...

Strawberry blossoms & weddings

It's a good thing I only have 2 children - if I had a third child, s/he would want to get married in May and I would have to commit murder - either the child or the husband, I'm not sure which.

Our wonderful d-i-l really wanted a June wedding.  But raising strawberries just doesn't allow for June weddings.  Late May was a compromise.  That was the first child, married 4 years ago this month.

Now the second child is getting married in May, too.  In Scotland.  In a castle.  This is a wonderful and romantic and exciting thing to do.  Farmer Bill & I will be there with bells on & love every minute of it.  But we'll also be thinking about the farm while we're there & we'll need to hit the ground running (that's the royal 'we' since it's mostly Farmer Bill) when we return.

I went for a walk across the berry fields today - the raspberries are starting to bud out - the blueberries have finally decided to put out leaves - and the early strawberry varieties are blossoming like crazy.  One month from blossom to strawberry.  So there may be berries to pick for the farmers' market as early as Memorial Day weekend.  We'll be opening for berry picking the 1st weekend in June is my prediction.  And that's 10 days earlier than average.

We're still waiting to see about the apples.  It does look like we'll have SweeTango, Haralson, Sweet Sixteen, and Keepsake.  It doesn't look like we'll have much for Honeycrisp, a real blow because that is the best selling apple.  SweeTango will sell very well, too, but the trees are still young and can't be allowed to have many apples on them.  There don't appear to be many Honeygold or Regent either.  But we're still several weeks from really knowing.

Last night we had 15 minutes of hail.  We've been a virtual no-hail zone for many years, but it couldn't last.  Since the strawberries aren't bearing yet and the apples are just at petal fall, there wasn't as much damage as might be.  Still, we know there was some.  It's hard to stay upbeat and positive when nature throws these things at you.  All I can say is at least it's not a grasshopper plague...