Spinella Farm

It has been cool, that's for sure. Even my fishing buddy Pat, who catches lobsters and fish off the South Jersey coast, says that the weather has pushed back the fishing season a couple of weeks.

Those big beautiful strawberries have stopped ripening up, the asparagus refuses to push its head out of the ground until it gets warm again. So Saturday's market looks like it will be a slow one in terms of local produce. Alas, the radishes are ready and the scapes have started to show on the garlic, which means that it won't be long before we start digging and drying.

We have had a nice steady rain soaking with this last system. The fertilizer is starting to kick in as the Cubanelle peppers are shedding their transplant shock, the peas are blooming like crazy and the potatoes have shot up another inch or two. They are just about ready to be hilled.

We gave the woodchucks an accidental black eye. A flat of basil was nipped on the top last week along with some pole bean transplants. Naturally, we blamed the woodchucks. But Dad yesterday ferreted out (no pun intended) the culprit - cottontail rabbits. He caught two of them back at the flats of basil working away again! Honestly, that is a relief for me as those woodchuck and deer take up more time to control than any other pests on our farm.

Speaking of pests, the Canada geese have been multiplying. I can't understand why. The last few years we had barley planted but we didn't sow any in. Yet the geese have shown up in double the numbers that usually come in. And some of them are bearing young. The droppings are the only problem right now but stay tuned.