June 8- June 13 (Day to Day)

Monday: Harvesting in the rain! It was a little wet and cold this morning but still exciting and rewarding. This week for our CSA we still have a lot of greens, but also a few new crops including: Scarlet Queen Turnips, Broccoli, and very colorful Easter Egg Radishes. This morning I harvested romaine lettuce and then I worked on washing and packing the produce for CSA members, cooler sales and a few wholesale orders. After lunch we went to Ruth Zinniker's farm and stuffed yarrow flowers into stag bladders for biodynamic compost preparation 502.

Tuesday: This morning I worked alongside Janet weeding the perennial beds. This was a great way to learn the names of a lot of the perennials here at Stella Gardens. I also planted marigolds, irises and thyme in the areas we removed weeds. In the afternoon I went to Ela Orchard with Bob and we worked on pruning the trees grafted earlier this spring. We also walked the orchard and scouted for pest damage. We checked traps for codling moth and plum curculio moth, and also looked for signs of black scab on the leaves. After Bob's I used the broad fork to turnover the soil in the two remaining beds in the hoop house.

Wednesday: This afternoon was our weekly CSA pick up here at Stella Gardens. During the pick up i worked on scuffle hoeing the spinach, mustard greens and arugula beds.

Thursday: At one, I went to work with our beekeeping cooperative instructor Dan O'Leary. We inspected the hives at Stella, the North Farm and the Zinniker Farm. The bees are looking great and we have started to add supers to the hives which means one thing... Honey! After beekeeping I started to planet peppers in the hoop house, however our weekly beer brewing session cut my planting time short.

Friday: This morning I started out by attaching the plastic mulch layer to the 5320 tractor and driving the tractor to the Creek Field where we are planting pumpkins and winter squash such as butternut and acorn. I then went back to Stella and finished up planting the peppers in the hoop house, the varieties planted include: jalapeno, habanero, serrano, bulgarian, anaheim, poblano, gourmet orange, sweet chocolate, apple, lipstick and ace. In the afternoon our biodynamic lecture series, instructed by Janet, continued with a discussion of the 501 field spray (horn silica). After the lecture Shawn and I worked on harvesting rhubarb, radishes and herbs for weekend cooler sales. 

Saturday: Another day of rain forced us to work inside this morning. So instead of planting and weeding, we worked on freezing excess spinach, making hominy and tortillas. After lunch we decided to try our hands at baking and made challah and sticky buns.