sheep, anyone?

Yesterday was a crazy day. Marlene, Manuel & I were transplanting a bunch of new varieties of lavender out in one of the fields when I looked up from the tractor and found 60 sheep standing there looking at me. We had been concentrating on what we were doing that none of us even noticed these little ewes making their way towards my tomato & melon fields. Needless to say ~ we were quite surprised and just a little concerned.

Luckily I knew which neighbor they belonged to and how to get in contact. So ~ for the hour that I waited for them to arrive to shepard their sheep home... I sat back & watched them graze on the weeds. I decided the highest & best use of my time (until their departure) was to babysit my tomato field. They hadn't quite figured out that there was a delicious field of new tomatoes & melon just 10 yards from where they stood! And I'm really thankful that I happened to be int he right place at the right time. Otherwise - unbeknownst to me - they might have grazed their way through my tomatoes! Mischief managed...

The great news is... we planted an additional 500 lavender out in an experimental area. I'm trying something new with the transplants and hoping the results will bring a lower rate of transplant loss and labor cost. We shall see.

Really excited about the upcoming weekend. Phoebe & Jacob are getting married here and we couldn't be happier for them. Most of their menu was designed to reflect crops that are coming in off the farm. So even though the tomatoes are not quite ready... there will be a fried green tomato course! Yummy! The fabulous & creative chef, Patrick Mulvaney (seen here, in action)http://www.culinaryspecialists.com/ will also use the apricots/plums or peaches from the farm to fashion some sort of signature cocktail... plum gin fizz anyone?? And I have no doubt every course will be delicious! Billy, one of my favorite pastry chefs will hopefully be here working his magic too. He was on the Culinary Specialists team for last year Center for Land Based Learning dinner. Here he is hard at work:

From the Fields

It's kind of funny... but.... when I started farming, I had literally never grown anything before. Life in Corporate America ~ and (at the time) raising a daughter alone ~ left me no time to play in the dirt. I have long since made up for that. Oddly enough though, I don't know how to do anything "small." What do I mean by that? Well ~ the first time I planted tomatoes on our farm, I put in a field of about 2 acres. All heirloom tomatoes and several varieties. As a result of my mass plantings - I have a hard time scaling back! Talk to me about field irrigation and I feel comfortable enough - but ask me about container planting or a small backyard garden & I'm mystified. Crazy, I know.

Anyway... there are a few things I've learned regarding growing tomatoes en masse! One very important ingredient is consistent moisture. Now I don't mean to the point of waterlogging your plants. Just consistent soil moisture. If you take a soil probe and extract some soil down to about 2 feet, you should be able to form ribbons with the soil. What you don't want it a big ball of dirt that sticks together! Too much water! One handy device I've implemented out in the field is a Tensiometer:

The tensiometer helps me better understand moisture content and water scheduling. I do, however, still double check with a soil probe to make sure I'm on track!

Another important part of organic farming is the incoporation of beneficial insects into our planning process. One of the steps we take at our farm is the inter-planting of Sweet Allyssum into our tomato rows:

We're always happy to see the lady bugs scattered here & there keeping the aphid population to a minimum! Which of course helps us with other field crops as well... like our beautiful basil & zucchini which are finally making a push since the weather is starting to warm up!