Russo Family Farms

Oops, I Bolted

This is a baby bok choy that has sprinted toward setting seed, due to the recent warming days. Bolting causes a plant to become leggy, tough, and in certain vegetables, to become bitter. There wasn’t much to do, unless I wanted to experiment with saving seed, except pick it and eat it.

Bok Choy

Bowl of “shiro” baby bok choy, trimmed of roots, washed, and ready to be cooked. It was quite tasty, like a very mild broccoli raab. Another variety of baby bok choy is more resistant to bolting, so I took a chance and left it in the ground for another week.

Bush Beans

Beans are showing strong growth. Bush beans do not send up vines, so there is no work to put up a trellis. The yard long beans are popular in asian cuisine, and have a drier texture than string beans.

Yard Long Beans

Borage, probably

Not too much color yet, but finally flower seedlings are sprouting. I designated an area for flowers that deter pests, thinking that I can grow it here and transplant as necessary. Borage produces an edible purple flower that tastes like cucumbers. It is supposed to be a good companion plant for brassicas, and tomatos.

Calendula

Lettuce Experiment

Tiny seeds such as lettuce have a pelleted version to enable the use of mechanical seeder. The seeds are not expected to germinate well after a year, but it has worked out. This experiment on older seed worked even without weeding, irrigating, fertilizing, or spraying.

When the row of beets finally started coming on strong, it needed to be thinned. Each beet seed is actually a compound seed, and can sprout multiple seedlings. Thinning helps to create enough room for the developing root. I didn’t do a great job thinning, but so far there are plenty of seedlings. Note to self to set seed much farther apart for the next succession planting.

Beet Seedling

Sauteed Beet Greens

Radish

Spring has finally taken hold and radish seeds we started on Apr 26 are starting to show good growth. While weeding, I’ve been finding the seeds that strayed from the row have grown larger roots. I tried to replant these, but the leaves shriveled up by the next day.

Comparing Radish Seedlings

I planned to use radish as a pest management tool for cucurbits (melon, cucumber, squash, winter squash, pumpkins), but to be honest, have never liked them as food. Some folks swear by them, I’ve seen radish as the hip representation on hand-crafted, screen-printed, Brooklyn-produced, $50-dollar canvas totes. But all I ever tasted was its bitter, long-lasting, tastebud-altering, aftertaste. I figured it was worth one last shot so decided to buy some at the supermarket and cook them with garlic and olive oil. Guess what, garlic + olive oil + salt + heat solves all problems. I like them! I will eat them! Heck, I will even buy those sad prepackaged little bags if that’s all the corner bodega carries.

Tatsoi

Tatsoi started on Apr 19 are about the baby greens stage. Next week, I can clip some leaves.

Onion from Seed

These white bunching onions, sown in 5 rows with about 6 inches between the rows, need a serious weeding session. After checking on the kale rows and weeding around each baby kale plant, I took out a rototiller for the other row crops. The importance of a straight row became apparent as I tried to steer the cultivator from hitting the crops. I need to pick up some additional hand tools – stirup hoe, collinear hoe – to help manage this multi-row crop.

Black Dirt

Irrigation was the first question I had about the farm. What you see is a cabin and a barn with a well in front, sans electricity, sewer, or water service.  It is the nostalgic, romantic notion of  farming, without the large house, working draught animals, or farm house. How was irrigation done in the old days?

As it turns out, this particular soil is great at absorbing and retaining moisture. The Black Dirt region of Orange County, NY was the bottom of a lake during the last glacial age. Settlers avoided farming the area as it did not drain well and frequently flooded. In mid-1800’s eastern european immigrants from Poland arrived and recognized the fertile soil and began growing onions.

If anything, flooding is more of a concern for the region.  Hurricane Irene 2011 covered the area under at least 4 feet of water, when the Wallkill river overflowed.  Luckily, hurricane Sandy did not inundate the area much in 2012.  Several local names, Pine Island, Big Island, are due to the highlands jutting above the waterline.

Some interesting stories about black dirt in New York State.

Click to access archivesmag_summer05.pdf

And the history of storm damage in the area

Click to access Appendix%20B%20%20s.pdf

Ladybug

Ladybugs are great to have since they eat aphids.  In large enough numbers, aphids can do serious damage to vegetables. These orange ladybugs are actually called Asian Lady Beetles, as they were originally native to eastern asia.  They were introduced to the US as a biocontrol agent since 1916.

Wooly Bear Caterpillar

This is the woolly bear caterpillar, which is a generalist feeder who apparently prefers weeds over crops!