April 26, 2008
May 26, 2008
We are tracking progress at the farm by taking a picture from the same spot every few days. Hopefully at the end of the season there will be a stop-motion video. Farmer No.2 would like seven or more cameras mounted around the farm that are on a daily timer. Farmer No.1 thinks this is ridiculous. It is almost impossible to show everything so there is a lot out of the picture frame. The new cucumber and corn crops are directly to the right of the camera.
The brussels sprouts leaves look like swiss cheese. Baby caterpillars have been spotted eating the plant before us. Preliminary online research found this article which describes the evil Caterpillar of the Small White butterfly as the culprit. "Pick off and destroy…"
Something is going terribly wrong. Leaves on our swiss chard have not been faring well. Theories range from too much sun or too much water. Online research prompted us to remove the dry leaves (and compost them), but keep the stems because they are still edible. There's no need to wait until the leaves are giant grocery store size swiss chard…we can pick the leaves earlier before they dry up. This discovery resulted in a delicious dinner—
Step 2: Open bag of chicken poop. Here is the kind Nick uses.
Step 3: Add a few shovels to each hole. Cover up with dirt and mark the spots for later planting.
We will keep you updated. If this raises any alarm, please post a comment.
Ladybugs are a great way to control aphids and other pests without spraying chemicals...and they are completely adorable. We purchased this bag of 1,500 ladybugs from the Gowanus Nursery, or you can buy them at Bio Logic . An adult ladybug can eat 5,000 aphids, then lay up to 1,500 tiny yellow eggs. Just sprinkle a few on each plant and watch them go to work.
At first these were pathetic bare stumps taking up valuable dirt real estate. Farmer No.1 considered purchasing a chainsaw to end both of them. It turns out that they are alive and bear fruit. We inherited a concord grape vine tree and a fig tree.
