This past week or so has seen some good news and bad news, The worst news was the frost that occurred over Mother’s Day weekend. Freeze warnings were issued and of course, because everything got an early start this year, lots of stuff was at risk. Some fruits and vegetables were affected; see the details below.

We have also been busy planting, plowing and planning this year’s planting scheme for the farm. So let’s just cut to the chase and tell you the good, the bad and the just plain ugly news from Magicland Farms.

The Good

• The strawberries survived the frost on Mother’s Day weekend due to the use of sprinklers. So it looks promising that we will have a strawberry crop this year.
• The peas, onions and garlic also survived the frost due to the fact that these crops are cold hardy. They can take a lot of cold and still keep on going.
• The tomatoes in the high tunnel sustained no damage.
• Most of the sweet corn plantings are okay because the early plantings were small and the growing point was still beneath the soil.
• The green beans were just coming up so they sustained no damage. Tom was amazed the other day with how well they are growing. At the rate they are going, it looks like a super early bean year for us.
• We have planted three different varieties of sweet potatoes: Beauregard, Carolina Ruby and Vardaman.  Here is a photo of our sweet potato planting: The row at the right is a row of tomatoes; the rows to the left are the sweet potatoes.

The Bad

• The potatoes sustained some minor damage. On Sunday, Tom and I went to look at things at the farm and you could see new green growth coming from the potatoes so while they might have suffered a setback, the plants are starting to make a comeback.
• The tomato plants we had in the low tunnels out in the field were about half damaged. Interestingly, the side of the low tunnel that received some of the sprinkler water meant for the strawberries survived; the side that didn’t was a loss. Those tomatoes that died have been replaced with new transplants.

The Ugly

• The pawpaws sustained heavy damage from the frost.
• The apples sustained moderate to heavy damage depending on the variety and the location in the orchard.
• Tom looked at the peaches the other day and thinks that there might be moderate damage to the crop. However, we should still have some peaches.

Overall things are looking good. We all wish the frost hadn’t happened but we know that everything happens for a reason. Planting is continuing, we still have lots more to go. Keep on checking back for updates. You can see some more photos at my previous post: Sunday Stroll Around The Farm.

I apologize for my lack of postings lately but that doesn’t mean that things have been quiet around here. Over the last couple of weeks, we have been able to start planting at the farm. We  even put in some sweet corn, hoping that the warmer than normal weather will provide us with early sweet corn. Here is what has been happening at the farm.

• The orchard got pruned and the brush hauled away.
• The first planting of beets went in.
• Our garlic crop is about six inches tall and looking good.
• All of the broccoli (early, midseason and late) has been planted. Also we have planted most of the cabbage.
• The sugar snap peas have been planted.
• The high tunnel is in use with the first planting of tomatoes.
• Norland, Yukon Gold and Kennebec potatoes are in the ground.
• New strawberry plants were purchased. They are in the ground being grown on plastic.
• Our famous Newaygo Newaygo onions were transplanted in the field. Hopefully they will do well this year.

There is much more to  come and we will keep you posted as things happen around here. Also, I have been working on the blog behind the scenes and hope to start posting regularly next week.

We now have apples, potatoes and onions for sale. We have opened up our storage room and found nice quality apples and onions.  We are selling our apples by the half-bushel and potatoes/onions by the half-peck at nice, low prices.

Prices of our apples of which we have a good quantity:

Jonathans, Empires, Red Delicious — $3.00 a half bushel

Crispin(Mutsu), Northern Spy, Idared — $4.00 a half bushel

Granny Smith, Fuji — $5.00 a half bushel

We also have some smaller quantities of other varieties at reasonable prices.

Prices of Onions:

Red Onions — $3.00 a half-peck (just over five pounds)

Yellow Sweet Spanish Onions — $2.50 a half-peck (just over five pounds)

Prices of Potatoes:

Norkotah Russet — $2.00 a half-peck (just over 7 pounds)

As always, please pull up plastic liner and leave basket.

Above is a picture of the some of the onions we have growing in the basement in seed flats. These will be transplanted out in the fields in April.

The varieties we have started are all sweet Spanish types. However, we have added some red sweet Spanish types this year. We are growing: Ailsa Craig Exhibition, Riverside Sweet Spanish, Montero, Red Defender, Ruby Ring and Red Burgermeister.

Our famous Newaygo Newaygo (walla walla) onions are overwintering in the fields right now.

So, if all goes well, we hope to have a bountiful harvest of onions starting in July at Magicland Farms.

Last year, we grew onions at Magicland Farms – our world famous Newaygo Newaygo sweets and sweet Spanish onions. The Newaygo Newaygo onions were a huge hit at the stand – wonderful taste and nice size but they are not an onion that will store well. The sweet Spanish onions were also tasty and we brought home some to use over the winter and they have stored pretty well. Today, I was making a BBQ Meatloaf for lunch and we came up with some sad news. The onions are about done and pretty soon we will have to find somewhere to get some onions from.

The good news about this is that the onions lasted until almost March – we are quite pleased with that. The bad news is that we don’t exactly know what to buy to keep us going until our onions come in. We are hesitant to buy onions from a foreign country and, with the salmonella/e.coli scares of the past seasons, don’t exactly trust the produce we find in our local grocery store.

This is one of the big reasons that the “buy local” movement is so important today. If you buy local, you know where your food is coming from and in a lot of instances you can get to know the farmer who grew it.

Of course, buying only local produce also has the tradeoff that you only buy what is in season and right now for us, local onions are not in season. So, the big challenge is to find a decent onion that we can grow and will store a bit longer for winter use. Maybe one of the new ones we are growing this year will be the one that will solve our winter storage problem. Let’s hope so!