April 16th Newsletter
Greetings from Harrisdale Farmstead
April 16, 2020
Produce available
• Spinach - Large bag (½ lb.) for $6.00 and small bag (1/4 lb.) for $3.00. We have a limited amount, so will fill any orders first come first served.
Ordering info: To order please contact us by e-mail (HarrisdaleFarmstead@gmail.com) or call us (712-243-3310) to inquire about availability and delivery options. We have been staying home as much as possible to avoid us being exposed to COVID-19 and practicing lots of hand washing and other good hygiene practices when handing our produce. Gil will be glad to deliver during his twice a week trips to town for needed food and farm supplies. Picking up at the Farmstead is, of course, also an option.
Farm activities
The cold weather this week has altered our plans for spring produce. We were planning early crops of the brassicas (broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower) because they thrive in cool weather. Our new priority has been keeping the recently planted broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage seedlings protected from the cold. Some are covered with three layers of white row cover and others with plastic gallon jugs with the bottoms cut out. We have been concerned because successive nights with low temperatures in the lower 20̊s (and as far down as 16̊F early on Wednesday morning) can be tough on plants, even those with good cold tolerance. This adds to the signs of stress that the seedlings were already manifesting going into the cold, likely from excess sun exposure or from getting too hot under the plastic jugs in those sunny and warm days last week. We’ll assess the situation when things warm up. We have a few seedlings still in the Rolling Acres greenhouse to transplant and, if needed, we will plant more seeds.
In addition to our spring produce plans being in flux, our plans for fruit crops are similarly affected by the cold snap. Earlier this spring we were really looking forward to getting fruit from some of the trees that we planted since 2015. By Easter Sunday we had a couple of sour cherry trees in bloom and also had apricot, peach, apple, and cherry trees on the verge of blooming. Yesterday evening we inspected some of the trees for frost damage, finding things looking better than we expected. Cat 2 came out to help us and climbed up into a cherry tree (see attached photo). It’s too early to know the full impact of these cold nights; however, we fear that our prospects for getting fruit are now less favorable than we thought before.
Our good news is that our spinach and a few other greens are still producing. Ardy continues to harvest spinach and is putting into our freezer that which we haven’t sold and don’t eat fresh ourselves. The garlic that we planted last fall and covered with 6” of hay mulch has been up for a couple of weeks. Any possible frost damage appears to be limited to a very small amount of brown on the tips of the new growth.
In the Rolling Acres Farm greenhouse Ardy has been potting up the herbs that she started in soil blocks. These plants were ready for transplanting into small pots, where they can continue to grow until after the last frost when she can plant them outdoors (for this area that is around May 10). Our plan is to plant a variety of annual flowers in our front garden from seeds which we have accumulated in the past years. In a test to decide which of these seeds to actually plant, Ardy planted a few marigolds from old seed and only one kind germinated. She has potted these marigolds as well as snapdragons. Ardy has been planting some of our favorite, but less common varieties of tomatoes and sweet peppers in the greenhouse and they are starting to emerge. For our main tomato and pepper crop, we will be buying plants from Rolling Acres Farm. Denise is focusing on growing lots of bedding plants for sale this year. If you are interested in locally grown plants, contact her at rollingacres76@gmail.com.
We continue to work with the students from the University of Iowa on developing our website and creating an on-line presence. Unfortunately the project has been slowed by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the University schedule. Having a good web presence will help us to share some of what we are doing. For example, yesterday evening Gil shot a 30 second video clip of Harrison playing exuberantly with a discarded plastic tree shelter. We think that it is delightful and we would love to share it. However the MP4 file is 54MB, so it is too large to share by e-mail. As an aside, the professor teaching the web development course, Kristy Walker, and her husband were featured in an April 13 story in the Des Moines Register (https://desmoinesregister-ia.newsmemory.com?publink=18cd37464_1343601).
We’ve been cleaning up the branches pruned from the fruit and nut trees and running them through the chipper to make mulch. Gil has been working on using reclaimed iron and wood for building handling equipment for the sheep. He has been counting the bales of hay in the barn and hoping to have the sheep out grazing in 10 to 12 days before the hay supply runs out.
Ardy & Gil
Harrisdale Farmstead
60182 Dallas RD
Atlantic, IA 50022
HarrisdaleFarmstead@gmail.com
712-243-3310 (please leave a message if we don't answer)
Our goals for Harrisdale Farmstead:
1. Produce fresh, healthful, and tasty food for local people over a long season.
2. Advance people's appreciation of the quality, nutrition, and economic benefits of a wide range of crops that can be grown here.
3. Foster a strong local food system which both supports public health by promoting good nutrition and generates economic opportunities in growing and processing food.