Since it is so warm, we went down to the farm to open the high tunnel. The first photo shows a view of the high tunnel with the sides open. See the plants inside? They look great! The second photo gives you a better view of the growth inside the tunnel. We took off the low tunnel that you saw in the pictures last week.

Here is a look at the pea field.

The beans don’t look like much right now but just wait. This warm weather should be encouraging growth.

Because of the freeze on Mother’s Day weekend, the potatoes were set back a bit. They sure look good now. The bags you see in the photo were used to mark the rows; we don’t need them anymore but haven’t taken them out yet.

Have a guess what this might be? A tent city perhaps? Actually each one of those tents houses a giant pumpkin plant. We used agribon fabric over hoops to make the tent. This will protect the pumpkin plant from all sorts of things and give them a good headstart. Hopefully we will get some giants out of these plants. Hopefully one will set a new record for us.

That’s all for now; check back next week for our latest photo tour.

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.

Okay, it’s not really a stroll since we took the truck but we did get out and walk around!  Here are some pictures of how things look at the farm.

A view of the tomatoes in the high tunnel.  We planted them earlier than we have in the past,  so we added the extra protection of the low tunnels in case it frosted (which it did with no ill effects inside the high tunnel.) Below is a look inside the low tunnel – you can see the tomatoes growing under the fabric.

And look at the next photo. Some blossoms appear on the plants! I cannot wait for the taste of a fresh tomato. We go many months with any slicing tomatoes since we don’t buy any from the grocery store. I would love a nice tomato sandwich right about now.

The following picture shows a low tunnel with more tomatoes, a raised bed with radishes and part of the strawberry field behind the radishes.

After leaving the high tunnel, we went to check on the peas. Here is a view of the field. The plants look so nice and isn’t that a beautiful sky?

Finally here are a few photos of the electric fence we have surrounding most of the fields. The first picture is a long view of the fence, followed by one of the gates we use and our warning signs.

Hope you enjoyed our little tour! I plan on doing this most Sundays but you know how that goes. The best laid plans ……

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.

The harvest season is in full swing now at Magicland Farms.

Some of the items we have available now are:

Sweet Corn – BiColor and Yellow are in now. We do have white sweet corn coming a bit later in the season.

Snap Beans – We have both yellow and green varieties, picked at the peak of tenderness and flavor

Tomatoes – Sun Sugar Cherry Tomatoes and our Little Red tomatoes are in and as always delicious. We just started picking slicing tomatoes and hope to be regularly harvesting them soon.

Apples – Quinte and Vista Bella are the two summer apples available now. We also have 1/2 bushels of utility apples for $3.

Peaches – Candor and Early Red Haven are the varieties available now – however not by the bushel.

Potatoes – Our delicious red potatoes and Yukon Gold potatoes are available now in quart, 1/4 peck and 1/2 peck quantities.

Kohlrabi – Try this unusual vegetable in cole slaw; it makes a great one!

Cabbage – Just started picking this today.

Cucumbers, pickles, beets, carrots, broccoli, zucchini and summer squash are available every day while supplies last.

(A picture of our garlic thriving in the field)

Today was spent planting a few different things. Our next patch of green and yellow beans was planted today. We already have one patch of beans (both green and yellow) planted that are growing very well. Hopefully they will keep on thriving and we will have early beans for sale.

Also we planted more of Bon Appetit sweet corn. Bon Appetit is a great flavored sweet corn with large ears. Can’t wait to have some!

More tomatoes were planted. The first patch we planned for the tomatoes is now full so our next planting work will be in the second patch in the near future.

The onions and the garlic were also fertilized today, along with some work on the electric fence.

Sorry about the lack of posts; I will try to one update to cover the last few days and then will start posting daily again.

Last week we worked on fertilizing the peach trees; there are tons of tiny peaches on them which means that we need to thin the fruit.

We also worked on the electric fence last week. Pretty soon it will be difficult for the deer to get into the crops and do damage (at least we hope so.)

Since it was rainy last week, we did more transplanting:

Tomatoes:

• Big Beef

Peppers:

• Giant Marconi – an 8 inch long Italian type sweet pepper
• Telica – a large jalapeno
• Bianca – an ivory bell pepper
• Vivaldi – a bell pepper
• Mandarin – an orange sweet bell pepper
• Ariane – an orange sweet bell pepper

Eggplant:

• Zebra – a purple and white variegated eggplant
• Hansel – a deep purple finger shaped eggplant
• Millionaire
• Machiaw – an Asian type eggplant up to twelve inches long and slender
• Vittoria – a purple eggplant

On Monday, the crew planted about 400 tomato plants in the field; they planted the 4th of July variety which is an early tomato.

After looking around the farm, there appeared to be no significant damage from frosts over the weekend.

Tuesday, the crew began planting the winter squash; we have a lot of squash left to plant.

Wednesday, we planted more tomatoes (Big Beef and Sun Sugar) in the morning, along with winter squash. While in the afternoon, the first planting of sunflowers and watermelon was made, along with planting more winter squash.

Also: I forgot to mention earlier that we planted Bodacious and Montauk sweet corn on Saturday.

We grow lots of tomatoes, both heirloom and hybrids. Most of the members of our family absolutely love a fresh tomato, especially one with loads of fresh tomato flavor. We don’t, as a rule, buy any tomatoes from the grocery store as we have yet to find any with acceptable flavor.

For those tomatoes that we grow, we try a lot of different varieties every year before we settle on those that we consider worthwhile growing. The ones that are winners for us must have great flavor, along with good yields and customer acceptance. So we have grown and discarded many varieties before settling on the ones we grow now, and even then we still try new ones every year.

I was surprised to read this article – How to Grow a Better Tomato: The Case Against Heirloom Tomatoes – recently. Most of my surprise came from the fact that Monsanto has decided to fiddle around with heirloom tomatoes; don’t they have enough other things to do? The article is slanted against heirloom tomatoes making them sound like they need to be “fixed” and Monsanto is just the company to do it. Heirlooms can be more difficult and touchy to grow but we have found varieties that give us great taste and acceptable production.

Be wary; Monsanto sticking their nose into something cannot be good.

The crew spent a lot of time today (since it was cold and damp) working on the tomato and pepper transplants. Here is a summary of what was done today:

TOMATO (most of the these I have described in previous posts, I will describe only the new ones)

• Super Marzano
• Aunt Gertie’s Gold
• The Secret Magicland Farms Tomato
• Mountain Spring
• 4th of July – This is an extra early tomato (the name implying how early they are). We are crossing our fingers that we can get some really early tomatoes this year. They are getting quite large so we planted them in large pots until we can get them in the field.
• Cherokee – a purple tomato with a sweet rich flavor.
• Amish Paste – an heirloom paste variety
• Pruden’s Purple – an heirloom variety similar to Brandywine
• Aunt Ginny
• Green Zebra
• Virginia Sweet
• Razzle Dazzle – a Burpee variety with deep raspberry color, not quite red and not quite pink.
• Rocky

PEPPERS

• Lantern – a top quality sweet pepper from Holland (new for us)
• Colossal – a bell pepper
• King Arthur – a bell pepper
• Tula – a Jalapeno variety
• Grande – an extra large Jalapeno
• Ancho Villa – an ancho/poblano type pepper