Tonopah Rob's Vegetable Farm

The demands of late have allowed me little time to adequately draw my thoughts together to post a proper farm update; I hope today’s entry will go far to fill in some gaps as to what has been happening out here at Tonopah Rob’s Vegetable Farm:

The longest night and shortest day are behind us and a transition is taking place. Winter on the farm is giving way to summer. The next season is already on the horizon. While many people in America are just moving into winter and folks are flocking to the mountains for skiing holidays and various other winter sports, I am turning over the soil, prepping the earth, and beginning the process of planting in anticipation of a harvest that is yet months away. This is farming in the desert.

A little more than a week ago, heavy rains delivered a much appreciated soaking. But as beneficial as those downpours are, they do leave me a muddy good time trying to work on the farm and harvest veggies for the Saturday market. While we slosh about and the plants enjoy the relief from their constant thirst, the weeds also indulge in slurping up some of that H2O goodness. Weeds, next to gophers, grasshoppers, and various plant diseases, are some of my favorite things, but only in an ironic way. Within days after the storms I’m nearly knee deep in the weeds.

Over in what used to be a spinach plot, which might still be a spinach plot if only the spinach could be seen below the towering bright green weeds trying to crowd out the real crop, Jerry hand picks on bended knees, delicately pulling the invaders out from the densely sown spinach plants. I don’t plant certain greens such as spinach in rows, instead I utilize blanket sowing because then the greens grow so close together that weeds cannot find room to sprout. Unless the greens are still very small and the rain heavy. Bingo, I have a ton of weeds.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, or in my case, out of the water and into the ice. Frost came along and showed its icy face. Shortly after the rains, the evening temperatures started their precipitous drop. Low 50′s, low 40′s, upper 30′s, we break out the frost cloth; its going into the low 30′s and hopefully only that low. The new hoop house over the tomatoes was finished in plenty of time but it was a rush to drape the plastic covering over the frame and get the frost cloth in place. Christmas lights were added to try to add a touch of warmth overnight in my attempt to save what ought to be a summer crop – so far so good.

Not so good for the green beans – goners. Some of the potatoes didn’t fair well either, they’ll be dug up for this Saturday’s market. As far as the potatoes are concerned, the cold actually does them a favor, with the top of the plants wilted and fallen down the water in the plant drops into the potatoes and they continue to grow for a short while. How else do you think those spuds from Idaho make that state so famous? The eggplant took some damage but it usually snaps back while the cucumbers are toast for sure.

The cold travels the farm in some mysterious ways that can effect some plants while leaving its neighbors untouched. In one plot, the south facing flowers were killed by the frost while just on the north side of the now dead flowers other flowers show brightly in the day’s sun. And so it is across the farm, here some damaged lettuce, over there some bell peppers getting mushy although most are still crisp and firm.

Today though, the farm is warm and sunny and two new helpers are on hand to tend to some of the many chores that too often are missing the required hands to see them find completion. A helper here on the farm is a rare treat, even rarer is the one that sticks around and so it was that a farm helper in November up and disappeared without a word, requiring me to find someone else. Shaun and Paris are two local boys who, without the need of much supervision, are taking initiative and working hard to clear out old brush, trim trees, rid my orchard of weeds, and handle some of the odd jobs here on the farm. I hope they will be able to drop by from time to time to earn a few extra dollars and help Jerry, John, and I as harvesting, cleaning, planting, selling, and prepping plots is already so time intensive.

Oblivious to all of this are the bees who are in abundance and a few grasshoppers that have managed to survive. The hummingbirds are brave this year, buzzing right up next to me, nearly circling my head. Butterflies share the bright yellow marigolds with the bees and both seem happy to find the luscious sweetness of color that doesn’t exist in the surrounding desert. Next to my plots and surrounding the farm is that very desert where birds flutter from cactus to cactus and a few hardy lizards still scamper about. A family of quail work a side of the driveway collecting morsels of a type I know not, while my broken one-eared iron rabbit stands sentry, yet does little to dissuade intruders from searching for food next to his guard post.

After the chickens have their midday scratch they quiet down from their boisterous cluckiness to a low murmur of appreciation with what sounds like a chickeny utterance of yum. The crickets chirp through the day as a background muzak blotting out some of the highway noise from the interstate two miles north of the farm. The neighbor’s horses offer an occasional whinny punctuated by a rooster calling his girls to attention. To this farm soundtrack I work.

The citrus hangs heavy in the trees, the cold working its magic to ensure a sweet harvest of oranges, tangelos, and grapefruits for this Saturday. The peas are flowering prolifically having survived the cold unscathed. The peaches are dormant for now but flowers emerge from their underground bulbs, some skyrocketing to two feet in height during the past two weeks. The artichokes have made a great comeback from just weeks ago when they nearly looked to be beyond the pale.

The onslaught of grasshoppers wrecked havoc across the farm earlier this fall, requiring multiple replantings. An abundance of quail with a particular affinity for broccoli and cauliflower sprouts ate their fill, too. Low germination rates on some seeds necessitated second and third plantings to fill in gaps although I wouldn’t put it past the various other birds on this small oasis to take advantage of my farm’s bounty to ensure their own survival. Not to forget mentioning watching the hording masses of fire ants who descend onto freshly seeded plots to carry off the seeds to fill their nests.

In the hoop house out back the humidity is high, water drips from the canopy throughout the day. I am hoping that I only lost ten percent of the strawberry plants to the cold. The survivors are looking good – a dozen tiny plants already have flowers. Along one side of the hoop house thousands of seedlings have poked their tiny leaves out of the soil and are soon to be transplanted, once the weeding is finished and plots are cleared.

The remaining broccoli in the South 40 will be harvested this week. The stalks and a few crowns will be plowed under, making room for purple, orange, and white cauliflower. Next to them, some cabbage and brussels sprouts are to be planted. The Windmill plot has a new planting of carrots after the first green beans of the season offered their last harvest and they too were plowed under.

Another plot will be ready by the weekend to see black and red boc choy planted. As the potatoes are pulled from the chipper plot, carrots or onions will take their place. My first garlic planting has not gone well but a replacement shipment came in the last week and went into the sundial plot today with some red onions being planted alongside.

After a day and half Jerry is almost half way through weeding the spinach. I really should get over there and lend a hand.

The purple pepper plot which of course will no longer really be the purple pepper plot is now the Hodge Podge of Randomly Scattered Handfuls of Seeds plot. Surprise farming is almost as fun as all-natural farming. I threw in a wild mix of salad sweeties, French turnips, a red flat turnip, Japanese turnips, Tonopah carrot mix, and green bunching onions – that might be it, then again many other seeds will likely wild plant themselves and almost certainly a purple pepper or two could take root.

In the raised beds where I will make my last cuttings of Tonopah Rob’s Spicy Salad Mix for this Saturday’s market, the mustards, Arugula, chard, collard greens, and turnip greens will be turned over, making them less a salad and more a green compost. In their place will be a fresh planting of all Japanese veggies, such as…well, Japanese veggies. I can’t look up what seeds I’ve purchased right now as this post is only getting longer and I am running out of time to finish it.

Later in the day the chickens indulge on a salad basket of greens, or rather, weeds, an occasional bite of spinach and the odd radish as Jerry dumps forty pounds of his hard work into the chicken playground. This brood of hens once more goes into a quiet chatter, casting long shadows in the light now turning golden. Most of the chickens scratch and pick at the late afternoon snack as a few others bathe in the dust, kicking the dry dirt up into their wings. In short order the greens will be scratched, trampled, picked, and pecked until little remains. Two hours from now the chickens will have found their favorite roosting spot and silence will befall the flock.

The chiles and peppers that just last week grew under the citrus, in the sundial plot, and next to the driveway were all harvested, thrown into an old lobster trap and roasted – bagged and frozen they will be available for purchase this Saturday.

A special harvest was gathered today as well: a sack full of ornamental pomegranates to be used for dyeing yarns the old-fashioned, natural way, as requested by a dear friend. Actually, I had originally planned to sell the pomegranates from this tree. At the time I bought it I understood it was ornamental but did not realize that ornamental meant not edible. Yeah, I know, this should have been obvious but I don’t know everything.

Buddy and Clara, my cockatiels sit outside most of the day. Buddy serenades the farm with his new songs including the beginning of the American Civil War song “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”. But enough with the birds, butterflies, and chickens. It’s getting late and I need to help Jerry weed the spinach. Then it will be time to drape the frost cloth back over the peas, tomatoes, the few remaining peppers, eggplant, and the potatoes not already killed by our nightly frost. As the sun drops below the horizon, the temperature will dip below 40 overnight. If I’m lucky it will stay above, well above 32.

Such a beautiful day it has been out here on the farm. The temperature stretched into the 70′s, letting us get out of our sweaters. Tomorrow – you guessed it – will mean more weeding as the chickens cluck, butterflies flutter, crickets chirp, bees buzz, and the little windmill rattles in the gentle breeze and life goes on at Tonopah Rob’s little farm in the desert Southwest.