buffaloridgeorchard

It was warm enough earlier this month that we unveiled the lettuce from under the row cover that has been on it since it was planted in April.  As usual we got carried away with varieties and have over twenty different types of head lettuce.  My favorite so far has been Red Leprechaun – an heirloom romaine with beautiful red-purple savoyed leaves that have a tender buttery flavor.  I wish I could find more information on how this lettuce got its name; perhaps the breeder felt that harvesting it was like like nabbing a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

Many of the spring and summer veggies have been planted and we are ready to start planting squash next week.  We decided to plant a few rows of ornamental corn including a few varieties that make outstanding cornmeal.  Mary’s favorite corn is Hopi Blue which she grows primarily for Vern’s famous blue cornbread.  Sowing the corn by hand felt humbling after transplanting over 1,000 plants the previous morning with our waterwheel transplanter.  It didn’t help that my cousin was planting soybeans several rows at a time in the adjacent field while I was on my hands and knees dropping each seed into its hole.  Similarly, last year Marcus found himself planting radish seed with our walk behind single-row planter when the surrounding fields were being planted with field corn.  Perhaps it is suiting to have a low-tech planting day to contrast with how industrialized agriculture has become.  We are constantly finding efficiencies and coming up with better ways grow certain crops here on the farm, but perhaps it is good to take a step back and realize that growing food is not always about the quantity of land under production.

It has been a busy couple of weeks!  After having a stern talk with mother nature we were finally able to get the rest of the apple and pear trees planted.  Marcus pointed out that we must be paying tribute to our past life in Pennsylvania with some of the varieties that we planted this year.  For all those Penn State fans out there, Buffalo Ridge Orchard now has Nittany apple trees, which is a cross between Golden Delicious and the York apple.  The York was always one of our favorites to purchase at our neighborhood farmers market in Overbrook.  It’s somewhat flattened in shape, is very firm, and has a cidery flavor.

We also planted 40 Seckel pear trees, which is a sweet dessert pear that was discovered as a wild seedling in Philadelphia’s Roxborough neighborhood in the early 1800’s.  Of course it is also likely that the pear was planted by German settlers and then later discovered.  Either way hopefully in a couple years we will have a supply of pears from July to October.  We were also able to get all of our onions planted – all five bushels of plants and two bushels of sets.  We had hoped to plant the hoophouse tomatoes, but are grateful that we waited until after this last cold spell.  Although we did not have snow, we did have 30 degree temperatures.

Mary and Vern got the potatoes planted as well.  There were lots of herb seeds that got planted, 4 long beds of lettuces (with another 3 on their way), and lots of other loose ends have been tied up in getting ready for the summer markets, which started last week.  So stop on by and see us at our summer markets; you can check out the link for our Farmer’s Market Calendar on the left to see when we’re scheduled to be at a market near you!

What a successful couple of weeks.  We are excited to be done with pruning and have starting planting head lettuce and apple trees (not together).  We have been enjoying the ease of using the water wheel transplanter for our lettuce starts.  As much as Mary loved her fancy wood dibble, she has willingly retired this tool for a comfortable seat on the transplanter. No more kneeling along the plant bed or meticulously watering each plant start.  It is so fun that even other family members have willingly taken a turn at planting.  Maybe we will be able to charge ride fees before long!

Garden Log March 19th – April 1st:

• Pruned 700 apple trees (Sansa, Senshu, Chieftan, CrimsonCrisp, Honeycrisp, Sweet Sixteen, Suncrisp, Cameo)
• Grafted the second batch of our tomatoes for our summer hoophouse
• Potted up 50 more flower seedlings into hanging baskets
• Transplanted mint cuttings to pots
• Potted up herb seedlings into planter boxes
• Moved all of the mints to the hoophouse
• Harvested 8 tubs of spinach & lettuce greens
• Planted 40 flats of lettuces in the field
• Planted 100 apple trees
• More weeding in the hoophouses