Greetings from The Neighborhood Farm!
It's Labor Day Weekend already! Wow! We've gotten a lot of emails
from people who are going away for the weekend, trying to get the
kids ready for school, or having a gathering over the next few
days. Because of all these comings and goings, we're going to do
things a little differently this weekend. We aren't taking
pre-orders for anything, BUT the pick up location will be stocked
and "open" all day Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. That
should cover everyone's cookouts, returns from the Cape, and
ambitious plans to cook some meals ahead before school starts. If
you know you want to stop by and you're looking for something in
particular, feel free to email and we'll see if we can arrange it.
Otherwise, browse away. If you want directions to the pick up site,
please email. Those of you who've come before, it will be the same
place as it has been. Please park in the street, because we're
having people over too, and they need to get in and out of the
driveway.
The pick up site will have a selection of:
Full Size Heirloom Tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes
Zucchini - last call, I'm pulling them out of the ground on Monday.
They did not like that month of rain and they are pitiful.
Summer Squash - last call
Cucumbers - last call
Eggplant
Peppers
Green Beans
Broccoli
Potatoes
Onions
Flowers
Assorted other things
Now for the newsy part of our newsletter:
Way back in July, I planned to write a little blurb about
irrigation. But then it started raining and it didn't stop for a
month, so it seemed like the wrong time to include irrigation
information in the newsletter. It's
been dry for a couple of weeks now, so I think this is an
appropriate time to explain how we get water to our crops.
We use drip tape to irrigate most of our gardens. Drip tape is a thin, hose-like tube with tiny slits spaced along it. Water flows through the tape and drips out through each slit. Ideally, we would have drip tape with a slit spacing that is appropriate for each crop. For example, if we had broccoli planted 18 inches apart, we would use drip tape with an 18 inch spacing. Water would be emitted at the base of each broccoli plant and nowhere else. This would cut down on water use and on the number of weeds we got, since the volunteer plants in between (weeds) wouldn't receive any water. On a small scale, like ours, buying multiple rolls of drip tape is impractical, so we have one giant roll with an 8 inch spacing. This is a good compromise for most of our crops. We lay the tape down when we plant and it remains there all season. It is particularly effective for crops we plant into a ground cover like black plastic. We run the tape under the ground cover. This way we can ensure the plants get enough water, even if the ground cover blocks some of the rain. Overall drip irrigation allows us to use MUCH less water than a sprinkler system, or even a soaker hose would.
In other farm news, the website will be updated over the weekend
some time, so check for new pictures next week.
And, we'll be at the Hopkinton Farmer's Market at Weston Nurseries
today (Friday) from 12 to 6. We'll have a HUGE selection of
tomatoes with us. Stop by if you're headed that way.