Summer is ramping up pretty quickly here at Terra Firma. I know this probably comes as a shock for those of you who live within a few miles of the Pacific Ocean, but temperatures since early April have been running 10-15 degrees above average for areas without a coastal influence. It’s been very warm, verging on hot.
That warm-to-hot weather has been great for our summer crops. Our tomato field looks amazing, and we fully expect to see some ripe cherry tomatoes well before the end of May with other varieties coming in June. After slow start, our sweet corn fields are growing rapidly. Our zucchini plants are flowering and have tiny squash on them; you can expect to see those in your boxes as early as next week. Watermelon and cucumbers are shooting their first vines across the tops of the beds and beginning to flower.
You’ll notice that the Large boxes this week are getting the first of our Peach crop. We have a bumper crop of just about every peach and nectarine variety in the orchard, and they’ll start ripening in earnest around mid-month.
On the flip side, it’s been hotter than our “spring” crops would like, but not “too hot”…yet. Lettuce and strawberry plants can’t handle more than a day or two above 95 degrees, and it looks like we’ll have a close call today. We’ve been racing to get them picked early in the morning and then turn the water on to keep them moist. Peas don’t like hot weather much either. If it cools down any time soon, we could go into June with strawberries, lettuce and peas from later plantings. But that doesn’t feel likely to me. Barring a drastic change in the weather pattern, we will likely transition to “mostly summer” produce box by the first of June.
So…enjoy the fruits (and vegetables) of spring while they last, and get ready for summer!
Thanks,
Pablito