ASIF Gardens

Last week we're freezing, this week it is 75. The plants don't know what to do and the garden is reflecting that. Unfortunately the bitter cold a month ago and then two weeks ago have kept things in a slow recovery. The broccoli flowered out with itty bitty heads last week. We pulled the old ones over the weekend and cut back any frosted ones. We also put in new plants. Gus and Andy put in potatoes, more peas, and brussel sprouts as a lark while I planted the last of the white lady turnips. We were busy this week.

Hunting season ends this weekend and Gus and I are headed for the woods for a long deserved walk. Enjoy the warm days, early spring flowers and azaleas this weekend.

This week's baskets were filled with kumquats, lettuce, collards, cabbage, turnips, kohlrabi, and pumpkin. Eat well.

The air is definitely warmer today than we've seen. I ordered some frostproof a few days ago and the gentleman in Frostproof, Fl., said that 90 percent of the country saw ice the night before including this guy on his way to work that morning. Wow, my heart goes out to those without power suffering through the ice storm damage. I know how I feel when we have warm days and power outages. I can't imagine snow and no power.

The gardens this morning were frosted in. The lettuce especially seemed to enjoy stretching their leaves after having the frostproof blankets on them. They are looking lovely. I can hardly wait to munch on the first kohlrabi tonight for supper. Luckily we had some left for the farmers.

We are freezing around here. Picked Andy's garden on Wed. while the wind whistled around our ears. I'll jump into our garden in a few minutes to weigh and sort your produce. Current temp is 37 degrees. The cabbage roots were really hard to break off they are so cold.

More peas and spinach went in the ground over the weekend. We had 2 visiting artists-in-residence with the FSU dance dept. help us put in flats of lettuce and onions. This weekend 6 more flats of produce will go in and hopefully potatoes and more onions.

Folks have asked how long is the season? We are committed through the 2nd week of June. After that is a toss up. We usually travel during the summer. However, if we have enough folks wanting to stay going and willing to help out, we could talk about it as a group. Let us know what you want and are willing to do. In the meantime, know that we appreciate your investment.

It isn't easy to weather freezing temperatures. In other climes, gardners build greenhouses and plant in containers to move into greenhouses. With school hours we just haven't done that. Instead, the nights that dip below freezing, Gus, Andy and I cover with a lightweight material known as frostproof. It reminds me of the sewing material called pellon. It takes about an hour to sort the covers, lay them out, and brick them down. In the morning, we uncover the plants so they can stretch and take advantage of the sun. Then if we have a warming trend, the covers go up on the lines to dry and be folded for another time.

It's time consuming, yes, but worth it. This week we picked and delivered 15.3 lbs. of produce per basket. Go GREENS, go!

Welcome. We thought as so many of you found us through Local Harvest that we would post Season Four's blog space here. We've enjoyed the first couple of weeks getting to know you and hopefully we are now in the real swing of things. Over the weekend, Gus traveled to North Georgia where he planted garlic with our friends there. Tomorrow we will hit our garlic fields though the ones I planted last month are poking their spindly first leaf through the ground now.

I made Green Tomato Chutney over the weekend and it will be an added value in the baskets soon. I also checked out the field at Andy's on Friday. The little Minute Cabbages are looking BEAUTIFUL. The White Lady turnips are starting to come on. I believe if all goes well and we continue to get regular rain, the week after Thanksgiving we may be able to get the weekly baskets to weekly instead of bi-weekly.

We continue to start seeds and seedlings each week, but as you are aware we haven't seen much rain so we are watering a lot. I also freely admit that we are delivering more baskets than we have in the past and I am still working full time. Gus however is working less at the school and more at ASIF Gardens and the addition of Andy has been a blessing. The field there is completely in drip tape and electrified to keep the deer out. Our gardens have been strung with higher fencing when the deer finished off the cucumbers the night before our last cold spell. Irrigation will come someday soon.

If any of you are wheat juicers, please let us know. We've begun to battle the nematodes with plantings of oats, rye and wheat. It's fairly easy to cut you some grass for your use, just let me know at the next pick up.