Summer Fruits
Magda with some wild scapes found on the farm
We have been getting ready for our first market this weekend (Saturday June 28th) and we are beyond excited! The warm weather and sunshine have been kicking the plants into high gear and we expect to have salad greens, radish, kale and chard available for purchase along with several plant starts for growing in your own gardens.
To get ready we built up a small wash n’ pack area which includes a sink for field rinsing greens and a mesh table for washing roots. It’s not much but it’ll do for now! It was fun figuring out the ergonomics for these tools, we went back and forth on how tall to build them. We are always looking for ways to make the work easier on our bodies. Especially if we want to keep farming for as long as possible.
Our greens and roots washing stations! Made from scraps and only a little bit wobbly.
Speaking of taking it easy on our bodies, we have finishing shaping, composting and planting Block 2. This block proved to be much harder to work with than Blocks 3 and 4. It ended up taking us probably 3 times longer to form these beds. The soil has much more clay in it and clumps up extremely easily. It was a challenge to rake but it’s done. And now, it’s all planted!
Well almost…
There are still 2 empty beds. We have so many seedlings waiting to go in the ground we have been shaping a bed and planting into almost immediately after. A very good problem to have. We are going to make a big push on Block 4 after this first market to maintain this great momentum we have.
Block 2 all planted with Magda weeding diligently in the background.
The final big update is that we have officially planted all of our summer fruits. Tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, cucumbers and summer squash are all in the ground. We also finished up planting winter squash. The plants are still small but we wanted to get them out as soon as possible. We don’t expect to have fruit for a while but have been noticing excellent growth already. That being said the summer squash are flowering. Magda and I have bets on if they will be ready in time for market.
In an attempt to reduce how much weeding we need to do we put landscape fabric down in between our tomato plants. This has worked very well for us in the past. Next steps are to get trellises in place and let ‘em grow!
Magda feeding our newly planted tomato seedlings. This backpack has a mix of water and organic fish fertilizer. The plants love it.
For those of you in the area, please come join us at Ypsilanti Market this (and every) Saturday 8am-1pm, 16 S Washington Street, Ypsilanti MI 48013. Can’t wait to see you there.
And for those of you following us from afar, we’re hoping to have another video update soon. Thank you for all your messages and comments.
All the best,
Zach and Magda
