Here’s a rare shot of the crew hand weeding carrots. Thankfully we’ve been able to avoid most hand weeding this year by being good with our timing on hoeing, but the carrots got away from us. Thankfully there was some shade cast on the carrot field to work in yesterday afternoon. It was a hot one. This is the longest consistently hot strong etch I can remember in my 18 years of farming here in the Portland area. Thankfully it is cooling off overnight so the mornings aren’t so bad.
The heat is increasing our irrigation routine a bit. It’s hard to say what other impact it will have longer term. It may cause a little gap in later tomatoes (high temps can prevent pollination), and it’s delaying some of the planting for fall crops and increasing stress on ones that were planted recently but we’ll have to wait and see how that plays out. Conditions are rarely ideal, and ideal for one crop is definitely not ideal for others so this is something we prepare for as much as possible and I’m not at all worried about it.
Predicting next week’s share is tricky. Lettuce is a bit behind so it may drop off for a week. Cucumbers and summer squash seem to be going strong. Onions will be back, and romano beans should be too. Beets and carrots are likely to show up, and we’ll try to harvest a bunching green to round out the share if the lettuce isn’t ready. I’m hopeful we’ll have tomatoes, but it feels like they’re ripening very slowly (there’s a huge set of fat green ones right now).
The cherry tomatoes are just starting to ripen in the you-pick section so make sure to check those out. We have the same three varieties as last year – Santiam sunrise (a dehybridization of the popular sungold), black cherry, and gobstopper.
Cully Neighborhood Farm 