Mike Ribblett

Maryland's Weather Just got Weirder

Monday July 7th was another rainy day. I went out in the morning and picked another 8 pounds of blackberries. Brian came to the farm and we both picked hops. We did that for about an hour before it started to rain and I went into the high tunnel to pick the biggest jalapenos. After the rain let up a bit I picked a few more hops before going inside for lunch. As usual in the afternoon I had my weekly connection meeting but this time it was co-hosted by Jeff Semler. The guest lecturers for today were Taryn Devereux and Anna Glenn.

From left to right. This is our setup for picking Hops. Usually Brian will be on the 9ft ladder picking the hops higher up and I am on the 2-step ladder picking down below. The last Image is what we picked for today! We separate out the Hops by variety which is why we have 2 buckets of them and we have a bucket of jalapenos.

On Tuesday July 8th, I went out in the morning to check out the farm and noticed that we are starting to see real growth! I went out in the 2 rows of zucchini and picked about 15 medium/large sized Zucchinis (about 13lbs total). We will need to keep an eye out for the green beans and we will end up having to pick them on Friday. Dave and I went out to mow the grass. While Dave was mowing the grass around our plots and the urban farm, I was using the push mower to cut back our Rye cover crop. This is to give an added layer of “mulch” or straw on the ground and  hopefully with the use of limited herbicides it should keep the rest of the weeds down in the vegetable plot. Wednesday I took off work for a personal vacation day.

From left to right. Here I am using our push mower to mow down our Rye cover crop. By mowing down the Rye we are adding a layer of mulch and added weed protection. This will also make our herbicides more effective and our weeding more effective. The image on the right is what the Rye looks cut down.

Thursday July 10th was a day full of adventures at the Urban Farm. It started off with a consultation visit with Dave, Brian, and I traveling to the USDA Beltsville Agricultural Center to visit a researcher as she was having a hard time diagnosing an issue with her Soybean crop for her experiment. She was researching genetics and genomes with wild soybeans and common soybeans. We toured the research plot and decided after looking and discussing that it was most likely a sulphur deficiency in the soybeans. After we came to our conclusion we went back to the office. In the afternoon the three of us harvested peppers and cucumbers. We finished picking just in time since it started to drizzle and when we got in Dave’s truck to drop off the pepper at Pherm brewing it began to rain!

From left to right. This is Suan, who is the researcher who is suing this plot for her Soybean research/experiments. Dave is trying to diagnose the issue, so he uprooted one of the Soybean pants to look at the root systems to see if that was the issue. Over the course of the morning and listening and taking in all of the possible sources, Dave established that it was a Sulphur deficiency.

In the afternoon after lunch, Dave, Brian, and I worked on picking Peppers out of our high tunnel for Pherm Brewing. We picked about 28 pounds for them! The peppers where a mix of Jalapeno, Poblano, Sweet Pepper and Bananna Peppers.

This was the hardest part of the day. Dave, Brian, and I picked cucumbers! Out of our 2 rows of cucumbers we spent about 2 hours going through the plants and we must have picked just about 100 cucumbers!

Friday July 11th was an interesting day. When I got to the office the internet was out again. I went outside to sit on our patio to visit one of the barn cats Scout! After that I went out to the farm to pick more blackberries and to stake up the tomatoes that had fallen over. Before and after lunch, I went outside to go through our two rows of string beans to pick through and grab all of the beans that were ready. Over the course of the week we have had hot weather, humid weather, thunderstorms, rain, and low humidity. Its been really rough on the crops but we are hoping they are all able to pull through this rough weather.

From left to right. This is Scout! She is one of the Barncats that lives in the nearby barns on the dairy farm property. She likes to come and be in our pollinator garden and sit on the picnic table in the sun. This is our 2 rows of string beans. I spent part of the morning and afternoon going through and picking string beans for the office.