Sunday, January 29, 2012

The weekend was beautiful with sunshine and clear skies.  The days were bright and sunny with low humidity, and the nights were clear and cold.  That's perfect tomato growing weather.  Those cloudy, dreary days that we've been having lately are not desirable growing conditions.

This week should be an awesome pick week for a winter crop.  Take a look at the pictures.  They are turning nicely and should be ripe enough to pick and eat soon.

We have not opened our little store here at the farm yet.  It's a little too early to have the quantity that we need to supply so many, so that one will have to wait to open in late February to early March. 

We are selling to Smith's Red & White in Dortches.  (Their sausage is great!)  In addition to the red, ripe tomatoes, Smith's is carrying our green tomatoes for frying. 

If you happen to be in the Triangle or Triad area, contact easterncarolinaorganics.com for availability.  There delivery details are listed on their website. 



Thursday, January 26, 2012

Today was a pick day and we enjoyed quite a nice picking.  Jonathan and Nancy picked all morning while Tim chose another chore.  Last time he was seen,  he was puttering around on a tractor. 

On a dreaded note, the bills must be paid today.  One of the most unusual and unseen purchases we make is for beneficial insects.  We shop with www.koppert.com and www.hydrogarden.com/. When the "bugs" arrive, they are in tiny little packets or bottles and are invisible to the naked eye.  The invisible eggs will eventually hatch and begin to seek and destroy the specific bugs that are their food supply. 

 The beneficials are quite often packed in an unidentifiable medium that makes it appear you are actually purchasing something.  If not for the medium, I'd swear we were buying air except for the fact that they do hatch and prey on the unsuspecting evil bugs that have already shown up uninvited.  Today's purchase was a total amount of $622.08.  For that we received two bumblebee hives (highly visible), Ervipar (for aphids), and Spical (for spider mites)

Tuesday, January 24, 2012



Today was not a pick day, but it was a work day.  We clipped, suckered, and lowered some of the plants.  It was nice to see the sunshine appear after a 3 day absence.  When we left the greenhouse, the tomato plants were standing up straight and tall, sucker-free, and smiling.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Today is one of those dreary Mondays with a foggy, cloudy, damp, coolness that makes you want to sit by the wood heater and drink coffee all day. Fortunately for us, we picked tomatoes today by the warmth of heat blown into the greenhouse from the Goliath 300 boiler. We had a pretty good picking of tomatoes for a winter crop. This is the earliest we've had tomatoes since we've been in the business. Ideally, we would love to have (and sell) tomatoes 12 months of the year, but we have to clean out and start over sometime. Although we just started picking, we seeded the plants in early October. Our cleanout was in August/September. Tim went on to pick cotton, so let's give Jonathan and Nancy the credit for this early crop. (True, but Tim did micro-manage us from the comfort of a cotton picker with his cellphone.) The bumblebees are working, the beneficial insects are hunting and all is well in our little, green world. We are not at all at full capacity, but the fun has begun.....whoopee!

What we've been waiting for!


We began picking towards the first of March. With that happy task comes packing for delivery and (of course) delivery. We still have to maintain the plants (i.e. suckering, clipping up, leaf pulling, fruit pruning, and lowering the plants). The fruit is delicious and beautiful. The best I can do right now is just to post a few pictures when I remember the camera.