Well, almost. The pumpkins have continued ultra-weedy, in spite of two rounds of cultivating and Rely spraying. We usually have a few weeds but this year the field is so ugly i can hardly stand to look at it. I hope to dedicate Monday to Cleaning the Mess, with Robert, the rototiller, hoes, backpacks, etc. It wont be anything like clean but I sure intend to make it look better.

Ah, but the garden! It has looked magnificent this year; full of flowers and pretty well maintained. It has received far less maintenance than I used to give it and yet looks much better and less weedy.

In fact…someday I hope to be grounds maintenance chief around here: dedicated only to making the place look clean and beautiful. “What’s that Graham? You say there are some thistles showing up in the currant patch? I’ll get right on that.”

August has continued this summer’s weather pattern of sunny but unusually cool until this week which has been 90 and quite humid. In comparison to the rest of this summer it has felt very, very hot.

The fruit harvest has continued to be excellent, the cool weather making for long harvests of large, high quality fruit. I think it has also encouraged more people to come out. We have had very busy afternoons at the store this year; perhaps because its been 81 degrees instead of 95.

Graham and I finished mowing the corn maze this morning. Robert helped me with the flag-plotting for the first time; both tasks were easier than ever. It should be a very good maze.

Not only could I see the bad ground when working the soil for the corn maze, I can see it in the corn. The areas of yellow clay are markedly weaker than the rest. Perhaps this is the true meaning of “tired ground.” Clay areas with enough humus and minerals depleted that it can no longer grow good crops.

Begins tomorrow and I am not nearly ready yet. But hey, its only 5:00 with hours until bedtime!

It has been a very busy week. The number of customers grows daily. i was especially surprised yesterday, as Thursday is usually a slow day. We were slammed.

It has also been very difficult keeping up with the already-picked fruit. Until today the Blueberries and Kotatas have not been ripe enough to pick quickly, making it hard to fill orders and the cooler. Fortunately the heavy picking has arrived (about two weeks late).

The raspberries have just finished. It was an amazingly heavy crop, nearly double last year’s. The last of the fruit was ruined by botrytis; the first time I have ever had this fungus in the raspberries. Still, an excellent harvest.

We have just finished a week of rainy weather which is very unusual in July, and so I was able to plow the old strawberry field in preparation for the cornmaze on the 20th. The ground was still a little wet for plowing- it turned over sticky. Fortunately I could let it sit for a couple of cloudy days to dry without it turning to cement. When I went out this morning to cultipack I could see the furrows shining in the early sun in a herringbone weave. Beautiful.

While working the ground I noticed bands of yellow clay on the sides of the draw, especially on the east side. No wonder this ground grew poor strawberries; it is not good soil. Before I plant here again, i will want to have added a lot of organic material and coddle those strawberries like crazy.

I admit to not being the King of Maintenance. Typically, I don’t fix problems until they become a crisis. Over the weekend several small leaks (that I had been ignoring) turned into big leaks. Monday afternoon was devoted to leak repair. One of the blueberry line valves had to be dug up, cut out, and replaced, ditto the shutoff to the barnyard waterlline. The gate to the blueberry field at the wellhead was broken; requiring a dis-assembly and replacement.

I put off this sort of work as I usually encounter unforeseen problems making what seemed like a simple job take hours. As I always have a lot of work to do, I like to spend my hours as productively as possible.  Fortunately, the leak repair session went without a hitch. Everything was replaced easily and is back in service.

Having been u-picking the strawberries for a week and a half, the season is already wrapping up. Instead of a ‘late’ season, I think we will have a season that ends at the normal time (July 4th) but with the first two weeks simply missing. Fortunately the customers have been very good sports about the poor quality. What a lot of nice people.

The baby strawberries were fertilized last Friday and continue to look very good.

There is a leak somewhere in the front raspberry irrigation line; actually a second leak as I already fixed a  bad gasket. Or perhaps the line is completely blocked. I think we give up fixing it and will water with the gun. We didn’t use this line last year as the summer was so wet and cold the raspberries did not seem to need it. I think we will plan to fix it when the old canes are torn down and we can actually see the pipes.

The pumpkins look very good; they all have their true leaves many have their second set. Equally healthy are the weeds which came up super-ultra thick. I think the weeds are mostly lamb’s quarter. Graham cultivated the pumpkins this evening which made things look a lot better. I hope to fertilize tomorrow which will knock out a bunch more of the weeds.

And it is our latest first day ever; last year, with a start date of June 18th being the previous latest day. The field does not look good but so far the fruit quality is fine.

It feels very good to be harvesting (and selling) again. This spring was so very long, dark, and cold. Everything is late; the strawberries most of all by nearly a month. So far, all of the fruit crops look quite good; better than last year, except the strawberries.

So far the baked goods are selling better than last year, although its a little early yet to tell. Baring any economic or weather catastrophes it should be a better year than last year.

As of June 17th, exactly ten days after planting, just as they should be. I think I saw rows of Indian corn while driving past but I haven’t gone out yet to look. Here in the next few days Graham and I will look for an opportunity to transplant the pumpkin plants that have been growing in the green houses. This will be tricky as they will need to be watered immediately and the pumpkins can now only be watered at night as the pipe would go across the road to the u-pick patch.

we just keep getting smarter about this one. The rows are now 8 feet apart up from 7. This will allow for easier cultivating. The plants take a while to fill in those wide spaces; perhaps a pre-emergent could be applied? I do think wide spacing makes for larger pumpkins. Next year there will be grass paths between the rows which will simply be mowed till the pumpkins cover them. This should make for cleaner pumpkins and customers.

Indian corn planting was very frustrating, as usual. The hand seeder just only works well in perfectly clean ground. This would require that I kill the winter weeds much earlier or plow the ground. It would also help to have the cultipacker furrows perfectly aligned.

And a darn good planting day it was! Not freezingly cold or roastingly hot (we seem to freeze or bake when planting), the ground was well worked, almost no plants were skipped, most of the plants were at the right depth (and a crew of my own children to cover the roots if they were exposed); it was a very good planting day! We didn’t quite finish the field. Dad said a full day of planting was 5 acres. This year’s field was 7 and 1/2. The crew worked till 8:30 with about an acre to go. As we were finishing up, Graham came out to apply the pre-emergent herbicide. We got everything put away and then…