Mid-summer monsoony dreams....

Our days have been filled with analyzing the weather patterns, obsessing over the barometric pressure and crossing our fingers for daily monsoons. When the sky darkens and the clouds open up we breath a sigh of relief that we do not have to water!

Luckily in Arizona we have two summer seasons which means we can have two plantings of summer crops. These last few weeks we got tons of new squash, beans, watermelons and flowers in the ground. We are kind of in between right now as our early summer crops fade out and our new plantings take hold. Right now its all about keeping the weeds at bay and making sure our babies get enough water. We expanded into our second field for our monsoon plantings and the soil over there is incredible. The previous owners had horses for many years so the land is well fertilized.

We have some early summer crops that are chugging along like the Long Island Cheese pumpkins. I love these fairytale style pumpkins and they are super delicious with a sweet light orange flesh. Plus they hail from our home, Long Island, so I love them even more. We have so many growing and the patch continues to expand out with new blossoms.

Boy are we having fun with the zinnias. Not only are they epic producers, lovers of the desert environment, but the bees and butterflies go crazy for them! We have a mellow natural bee hive in one of the cottonwood trees and its clear they are sticking around this summer because of the zinnias. Also Andrew planted some mammoth sunflowers by the mushroom greenhouse that they love. We are drying the heads to sell at market so keep your eyes out for them.

And no, we haven't forgot about mushrooms! This week we are cleaning out the greenhouse and getting ready to start making logs to be ready sometime in September. The next few weeks will bring us weeding, weeding and more weeding and hopefully many more sunsets like these.....

Thanks for reading and see you at the market! -Nicole, Andrew, Willy & Big Girl

Hello Monsoons!

The monsoon season came in late June to everyone's surprise. Usually it rolls in about the 4th of July but it came a bit early making for some very happy farmers. The smell of summer rain is intoxicating. The sunsets, clouds and lightening they bring is slowly making summer my favorite season.

Andrew was excited to get the tiller out once the ground softened up. We received our seeds right in time and have lots of beds planted with more squash, black eyed peas, basil, okra, cucumbers and zinnias among other things. Speaking of zinnias the ones we have planted have really begun to flourish. We started selling bouquets at the market and people have been loving them!

We also planted a few new rows of sunflowers. The branching sunflowers have been doing great, we are harvesting the heads to dry and sell as bird feeders. The butterflies, bees and hummingbirds have been busy pollinating the entire garden. The flowers have really helped to attract them.

Oh! And the crenshaw melons have ripened! These melons are INCREDIBLE! The flesh goes right up to the skin so you get so much sweet fruit from one melon. We may just end up eating them all ourselves. Our heirloom tomato crop has been producing like crazy. We love that our friend Charlie (of Aravaipa Heirlooms), down the canyon, grew all the seedlings. These are true Aravaipa Canyon tomatoes! We have been picking tons of them every two days and they have been selling great at the markets.

The next few weeks will bring more planting and LOTS of weeding and LOTs more harvesting from our early summer crops. Hopefully as it starts to cool off more we can get mushrooms going. I know many customers are missing them but with the new green house its just TOO hot in there. Thanks for reading :) -Nicole & Andrew

Summer is Coming....

Late May and early June brought in some below average temperatures giving us a little relief from the usual 100+ days. We had two hurricanes blow in from Mexico which gave some incredible steady rain for a few days reviving our bush beans. The harvest has been epic with this variety living up to its name, Provider Beans. We have been picking them every two days and have gotten 80+ pounds from just two rows!

The flowers have been blooming away. We already cut and sold our two rows of sunflowers but plan on planting more for monsoon season (July-Sept). People really went crazy over them and it was so awesome seeing customers walking around the market with our bouquets. The zinnias are just starting to come in and we can tell already that they will be epic. We have some branch sunflowers growing which we plan on turning into bird feeders to have some value added products at our stand.

Its definitely tomato season here. Our 70+ heirloom plants have begun to ripen and we just harvest the first few batches this week for market. Its so fun seeing all the different shapes and colors from these heirloom plants. I like to just sit in the tomato patch and breath in they're heady aroma. Always smells like summer in there.

How that the temps are starting to rise the melons are really starting to blossom. They are tiny babies now but we have a lot coming in!

The summer squash is just getting started with what seems to be a bumper crop. Market customers are loving our zephyrs, a hybrid organic summer squash with multicolored yellow and light green skin. Oh! And mushrooms are still producing well! We were worried about the hot temps in the greenhouse and not really counting on late May & June being very good for the shrooms. With the cooler night time temps they have flourished to our delight. Now that its getting up to 108 next week there may be a hiccup in production but that is OK, we are busy with the rest of the summer harvest.

That is all for now, thanks for reading! -Nicole & Andrew

Cool amazing rainy May!

May came in with some beautiful cool weather and a surprise few days of rain and thunderstorms. From the past six years of living here I always remember May starting in the 90s and rising quickly to 100 but this year has been a wonderful cool blessing. We had so much rain in the start of the month that Aravaipa Creek started to run again!

Obviously our summer crops were loving all the precipitation. Our squash has been blossoming away and we even harvested our first zuchinni a few days ago.

The tomatoes have been exploding with blossoms and tons of baby green tomatoes. Even the plants that were damaged a few weeks ago with cold weather have been coming back with a vegence.

The bush beans have been putting out the most beautiful purple blossoms and the tiny beans are so cute.

The sunflowers have been growing so fast, some are almost 3 feet tall! We planted a variety of different sunflowers and zinnias for our cut flower bouquets. We are going to have a very colorful market table this summer.

The first part of the month we spent clearing out all the old winter crops. I weed whacked in between the overgrown rows and harvested anything we had left. The fridge is still stuffed with turnips. We believe it is important to keep grass and organic matter growing between and on top of old rows to protect the precious soil from blowing away. It works great as long as we keep on top of it so anything growing doesn't overtake newly planted rows.

The mushrooms are still producing beautifully, even in the warmer weather. We are hoping to keep producing through June. It may be a challenge in the new greenhouse when it reaches 100+ out but we shall see. It is all new territory in this grow house, lets cross our fingers that it can take the heat! Thats all for now, thanks for checking in! -Nicole & Andrew

Its been a great two weeks with my parents here. Looking back on all we accomplished with them is awesome! My Dad really worked hard on the mushroom area. He built a drainage furrow for the used mushroom water to feed a baby cottonwood tree...

An awesome water system that feeds the swamp cooler in the greenhouse and our hose system for the mushroom tanks...

And organized the whole area to make mushroom log making super easy!

Dad also made a row around a mesquite tree and Andrew planted gourds there. Its going to look beautiful once they start sprouting.

We also got the mower going! All it needed was a new battery and a tune-up. We got the yard looking great and now we can walk through without the weeds blowing pollen in our faces..yay!

We all organized the tools, got the washer/dryer going, cleaned up the old mobile home along with countless other projects. They were an awesome help and now they just need to come out here full time! Now to veggies. The carrots and beets have been amazing. We've made some really good stews and roasted them with chicken. YUM!

Next up for harvest is bush beans (green), tomatoes, pumpkins, watermelons, summer squash, zucchinni, FLOWERS (zinnias & sunflowers) and basil. We got all of our summer stuff in so now its just watering & weeding. Stay tuned :) -Nicole & Andrew