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.

In blog posts from previous years, and also on our website, we shyly hinted about the upcoming summer. This year it is so clear that there is no need to hint—UNLESS AN ASTEROID HITS EARTH OR A HUGE VOLCANO ERUPTS OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT AFFECTS THE EARTH THIS SPRING, THE SUMMER IS GOING TO BE ABNORMALLY WARM—I’M AFRAID TO SAY HOT BECAUSE MOI, MOI’S WIFE AND MOST OF THE REST OF US AT MAGICLAND FARMS CAN’T TAKE THE HEAT.  (We spend lots of our time in the hot sun and when you are in the middle of a corn field on a sunny day the temperature is at least 10F warmer than out on a golf course or a lake.) WARM IS FINE,  HOT AIN’T! But there is a definitely possibility that it will be hot. Also, it looks dry except perhaps for those stray tropical systems that recently have drifted over Michigan and brought helpful (and sometimes not so helpful) rain. Why are we so sure about the summer? Simple. Canada has had its warmest winter ever recorded and there is little—if any– snow left up there. It isn’t widely known but, under clear sky conditions, central Canada gets more energy from the sun during May through July than Texas! Without snow and ice the sun keeps heating the ground up and keeps heating it up…. The other reason is that while the Gulf of Mexico is unbelievably cold, the tropical Atlantic is near record high levels.  If it stays that way, watch out for a huge number of whoppers of Hurricanes.  However, it doesn’t seem likely it will stay so abnormally warm during the summer.  If it does…well, sell your insurance stocks quickly! What is likely though is an active Hurricane year and this nearly always means warmer than normal summers over the Great Lakes. This combined with little snow in Canada makes the spring and summer forecast quite easy. Another reason, by the way, for the warm summer is the fading El Nino. This will likely also increase tropical Atlantic activity and which goes along with warmer conditions in Michigan. By the way last year, despite the much cooler than normal June through August temperatures, all our warm crops—watermelon, sweet potatoes, late tomatoes—ripened well. What this means is we really don’t need warmer than normal summers to ripen everything just fine. Normal is just great! Too bad normal is abnormal!

1. This is an interesting story that provides some insight into the length of time it may take produce to reach your grocery store from the farmer’s field. One of the details in the story tells us that “after 16 days green beans have lost 45 per cent of nutrients, broccoli and cauliflower 25 per cent, garden peas up to 15 per cent and carrots 10 per cent.” After 16 days???? Come down to Magicland Farms to get your produce. I guarantee that you will not find green beans for sale that are 16 days old, let alone a week. Read the full story – Frozen vegetables ‘more nutritious than fresh vegetables’, says report
2. It’s about time small farmers get some support from the government. Locally grown food is the most affordable and nutritious food there is. The government would do well to support the efforts of the small local farmers. Although from my pre-Magicland past working with government programs, I know that they can create a lot of hoops and obstacles that would kill anyone’s interest in getting support of any kind from the government. Hopefully the programs will be simple and useful. USDA Deputy Secretary touts fed support for small farmers
3. You live and die by the weather when you farm. Last year the cool weather combined with the scourge of late blight created tons of problems for farmers all across the Northeast. This year things are starting early down in the Southeast. Hopefully things will improve in their neck of the woods. Tomato Supplies Low Due to Florida Freeze and Wet Weather Hurting Vegetable Farmers in South Georgia
4. Lately it has become what seems to be a full time job doing the grocery shopping. I have become way more conscientious about reading labels that I ever have been. It started out with my aversion to buying food products from China and now it appears that you could end up paying a whole bunch more for a product just because the company decided to relabel it and sell it as a more healthy alternative.  Zero Nutritional Difference Between Campbell’s “Healthy” Tomato Soups And Regular, Just Higher Price .  Stay tuned to this blog because we are going to do our own taste test in the near future and see whether there is any flavor difference that justifies the higher price.
5. RECALL ALERT! I probably should have posted this on top of the list but I am just learning about blogging using Wordpress. So until I get more experienced, I am leaving this post as is. (I lost several versions of this post at various times today due to my ignorance.) Anyway, here are a few stories on food products that have recalls associated with them.  Foods with flavor enhancer HVP recalled due to salmonella contamination, Recalls: McCormick mixes, spinach dips, soup, and More Pepper Recalled in Salmonella Outbreak.

Hope you find these stories useful!

Today we have a guest post by Magicland Farms’ resident weather guru AKA The Boss:

If you look back at my 2009 summer forecast you might think I goofed big time but I forgot to mention the forecast was for Texas and not Michigan! Just teasin’. By the way Texas did have one of the hottest summers ever although if you took a leisurely summer afternoon’s drive north you might have shut off your car’s A/C just as the sun got low in the sky.

Let’s look again at the few sentences that form the heart of my summer of 2009 forecast:

The point here is that I assumed when I made the forecast that sunspots were about to reappear. This was what was forecast to happen based on hundreds of years of observation. But the sunspots never appeared all summer and fall. Just didn’t happen.

Even though the lack of sunspots was really weird, I did mention this possibility in my forecast. Here is a sentence I copied from that 2009 summer forecast:

While no one knows for sure why this occurs: hot summers being associated with the return of the sunspots and not by the actual number of sunspots, one possible explanation follows:

Think of the sun as a pot of very hot water near its boiling point, say 205F. If you keep the heat on low to keep the water on at 205F nothing seems to happen. Then you turn the knob on the stove to medium and as the water rises to near boiling (212F at sea level) bubbles of water vapor will start at the bottom of the pot and float toward the surface. Probably a similar thing happens to the sun when there are no sunspots. The temperature is a bit below some critical point (which must be somewhere around 100 million degrees in its center although the sun’s surface is a relatively cool 10,000F) Then when the sun’s internal temperature increases, bubbles start forming deep down and rise to the surface, creating the sunspots.. Exactly how long it takes from the time the sun’s internal temperature rises to the time the sunspots form is a guess, although it’s probably closer to days or weeks rather than minutes and hours. A hotter sun of course usually means warmer land temperatures especially during the summer in areas north of the tropic of Cancer or south of the tropic of Capricorn, which includes all of the continental United States.

While there are other factors to consider, such as the El Nino which looks right now it will turn into a whopper (however, El Nino’s significance regarding summer weather is an unknown quantity), my 2010 forecast is for another return to the summers of the mid 1950s. Hopefully, the summers of the 1930s won’t ever return. This isn’t simply hope, since the summers in the mid 1930s likely were so extreme because of the farming practices that helped create the dustbowl which caused a drought or perhaps vice versa. Excessively dry soils, as meteorologists know, are associated with above normal air temperatures because the sun doesn’t expend its energy in evaporating water all it needs to do is warm the ground and air which uses quite a bit less energy than changing water from liquid to its gaseous state.

The bottom line. Look for a hot dry summer throughout the Midwest including Newaygo County Michigan and Magicland Farms. Of course, if the sunspots fade away in spring and summer, which would be truly startling, forget my forecast.

FYI: The latest NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center’s June, July, August (Summer 2010) prediction is for normal temperatures in Newaygo County, Michigan and the Midwest in general. Joe Bastardi from Accuweather hasn’t publicly issued a forecast yet and it is hard to determine yet what he thinks.

I want to apologize to anyone who made a comment on my summer 2009 post and I failed to respond. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to look over any comments to the blog and respond in a timely manner. I do greatly appreciate any comments and I want to encourage them.

Cold weather hampers crops

The weather we have been having lately sure hasn’t been helpful for the planting or growing of our crops (except for the ones that love cool weather). Sunshine has been scarce as well. Fortunately it appears that we may be heading for some nicer sunnier weather. 

We have been able to continue to plant our vegetables but know that warmth, sun and rain are all needed to keep them growing. Yesterday’s rain was welcome as it has been dry around here. We were contemplating getting the irrigation going at full force but this rain has allowed us to avoid watering the crops.

The overnight lows have sunk  to scary levels a fewtimes, which necessitated covering tomato plants as well as watering the strawberries. Luckily we managed to avoid damage from the cold temperatures. Normally our last frost date occurs somewhere around May 18th so these cold evenings were quite a surprise.

Hopefully we are past the chilly weather and some nice summer weather will settle in and help the vegetables to grow well. 

(Above: Sunspot Charts)

Today we have a guest post by Magicland Farms’ resident weather guru AKA The Boss:

What will the summer temperatures be like in Newaygo County, Michigan? (For those across the planet, Newaygo County is located in the west-central part of the Lower Peninsula of the State of Michigan in the United States of America.) Well, first NOAA thinks the temperature will be about normal. Ditto for the Old Farmer’s Almanac although they think it might be a touch above normal. Accuweather.com thinks it will be cooler than normal. (Average highs here in June are about 80, July about 82 and August about 81, with night time low temperatures about 22 degrees cooler than the days high.) What do I think? It will be warmer than normal. Why? A lot has to do with recently noticing that the really hot summers, 1935 and 1936, 1954 and 1955, 1988 and 1995 are the same years that the sunspot number was at its minimum AND the sunspots were just starting to return. That’s what 2009 looks like too, although we won’t know for sure that the sun is becoming more active until after summer is over but it looks that way right now. There is something else. It’s the jet stream, more technically it’s the upper air wind flow (above 35,000 feet). Recently, here in mid to late May, the jet stream has been stuck where it normally is in August—way up in central Canada. This is unusual and, to me anyway, implies it will likely stay there for the duration of summer because things are warming up in Canada faster now than any time of the year (this part is normal). (No doubt there will be a few dips down into the states but these will likely be of just a few days duration.) Cool summers here in west-central Michigan, which is what Accuweather.com is forecasting, always have the Jet Stream farther south than normal and not farther north. One other thing. There has been a heat wave in many parts of Asia, including part of Siberia. Look to see in the next 2 weeks if Alaska gets a heat wave. If so, we may have a summer to rival that of 1988 and 1995. Don’t panic! I am not forecasting anything like the disastrously scorching summers of the mid 1930s!

We have been trying to take advantage of the weather to get some of the early crops planted. Last week, we got the ground ready for planting the cabbage, for example, but then the rains came and made it impossible to plant.

Well, today’s weather was much more cooperative so some planting got done today. The kohlrabi, broccoli, cabbage and beets were planted. I believe that we are going to try to get another patch of sweet corn planted this week, weather permitting.

Even though the weather wasn’t good for planting yesterday, the crew managed to clear out the rest of the brush from the orchard. Pruning the trees over the winter leaves quite a bit of brush to clear and it is not one of the favorite things to do in the orchard. So everyone was quite pleased that this task got completed fairly quickly.

This morning some tomatoes were transplanted from seed flats to peat pots. Among the varieties transplanted were Big Beef, Black Prince, Green Zebra, Cherokee, Mortgage Lifter, Martin, Sun Sugar and our secret variety that provides a lot of the delicious slicing tomatoes you find at Magicland Farms during the summer. If you haven’t tried any of our heirloom tomatoes yet, make sure to give them a try; they are a tasty treat!

We really had the snow today. It started this morning and continued most of the day. The snow was blown around by a strong east wind. Not very pleasant outside. It made for a great day to stay inside and try to stay warm.

However, it wasn’t like that all week and the crew was able to get out to the orchard and do some pruning. Here are some photos:

This is a very important picture to us here at Magicland Farms.

In Magicland’s history the peach crop, and in fact the peach trees, have been wiped out by severely cold winter weather – the last time this happened was in 1994. Every time we get temperatures below zero, the peaches are the thing we are the most concerned about. This year, as you may know, we had a couple of bouts of Arctic weather where the temperatures plunged below zero. As far as we can tell from the data we gather, it got down to -8 at the farm.

As soon as we were able, we got out to the orchard to cut some small branches from the peach trees that had buds on them and put them in a vase at the house to see how they withstood the weather. Well, happily for us, they blossomed so it would appear that, so far, the peach trees have withstood the cold weather this winter.