Tragedies aside, this month marks a full year since I first became involved in Sergi Farms, and I have to say this is still my favorite time of year to be on the farm. The weather is cooler, the wood-burning stove makes the stand feel nice and cozy and the crops are pouring in from the fields.

An autumnal display featuring four varieties of pumpkin

We planted several cauliflower plants this year, and while the plants all did fine for some reason they never flowered. All except one that is. Yesterday I discovered one gigantic, beautiful purple cauliflower.

the pumpkin and the cauliflower

In other news, we now have three goats staying on the farm. Come by and visit them.

-Leslie

Garcia has finally laid eggs! She is not getting fired, we might even give her some sort of raise (hmm, give her a corn cob and bat all the other chickens away maybe?)

The new crop of beans came in today, and we’re expecting beets and cucumbers in a week or so (pretty please, Mother Nature). Peppers both hot and mild are both finally growing big as are eggplant. The parsley, basil, cilantro, and dill are still up for grabs as are squash.

Leslie’s giant pumpkins are growing rapidly. While she’s been okay, I’ve been watering them and singing them some songs.

Alison and Rebecca have both returned from camp and have once again been coming and helping. Terry has been faithful as ever on the register. Lenka, Phillip, Mike, Narineh, Hermik, Karen, Yosef, Naima, Suzanne, Ty,  Deane, Frank, Lois, and others whose names I can’t remember right now (sorry!) have also been around to pick and weed. Pat has been as always tending to the flowers which, with the exception of the fungus-ridden glads are doing beautifully.

Unfortunately, to answer many who have asked, we will not be able to have a booth at the farmer’s market this year due to lack of regularly attending volunteers. I like this as about as much as you guys. Maybe next year? I hope.

As we did last year, this year we are going to have people vote on what to donate our tips to. I believe we currently have around $300 and we will split the money to donate the the two options that are most voted for.  If you can’t make it to the farm, express your vote in a comment to this post and I’ll add it.

The options are:

Jimmy Fund/ Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Doctors Without Borders (Provides medical care to disaster victims)

Oxfam America (assists poverty and disaster-stricken areas)

American Red Cross

UNICEF

Animal Rescue League of Boston

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

Accelerated Cure Project for MS

Audubon

Greenpeace

Bikes Not Bombs

Project Bread (Hunger in Massachusetts)

I hope to see you all at the farm!

Please vote!

Yulia

P.S. Today would be the 92nd birthday of Alan Jay Lerner and the 91st birthday of Amrita Pritam.

P.P.S. Today is the 73rd birthday of Bobby Parker.

P.P.P.S. Today is Independence Day in Malaysia, Kyrgyzstan, and Trinidad and Tobago.

So here I am, at eleven o’clock at night, typing out this photo-devoid blog post. However, I will be making more attempts.

The goats are quite cute, their brays are actually quite nice once you get used to them. I still wish I could pet them, but it is pleasant to just watch them graze.

We’ve now got peppers, the new cucumbers are in (yay!), and the eggplants are getting very large. Please come by for them!

Kathy Ellen was around for nearly the whole weekend. We had all really missed her (she’s been in Santa Cruise for almost a year). She’s temporarily left again but will be back Saturday with her boyfriend, Craig.

The chickens are doing fine and dandy, although Garcia still hasn’t laid blue eggs. Some of us are considering firing her. Others are considering making her into soup, but I can’t even bear to think about that (this is why I’m a vegetarian).

Little story:
I was putting the chickens away a couple of days ago, and it was one of their restless days ( I think the presence the hawk on the roof of the barn influenced this), and they were jumping around everywhere. So as I was putting them away for the night, a mother and her little boy were watching me. The mother had told the boy that I was putting the chickens to bed, and he was watching me try and get the chickens into the coop while they put up the good fight. So at some point he says to his mother, “I don’t think the chickens are very sleepy.”

Alright, that’s not too funny; it’s a “You had to be there” bit of humor. I thought it was funny.

The beets are growing steadily, they’re still tiny though. We spent quite a few days weeding out the patch, so the weeded plants are now flourishing.

As it is getting dangerously close to midnight, and as nothing good happens after midnight, I’m going to bring this piece of writing to a close.

I hope to see you all at the farm, either in person or in spirit.

Ah gute nakht!

Yulia

Ivy (left) and Flora (right)

We’ve been hosting some day-time visitors over the past week. Flora and Ivy are visiting Sergi Farms in an effort to help their kids ween, but also because Mike really, really likes goats. Unlike our previous visitors, the sheep, these goats go back home at night.  Come and visit them; they will probably bray at you in the hopes that you will feed them (sadly, not allowed).

Our goat friends in their temporary pen.

We’ve been occupied with the usual tasks over the past couple of weeks, namely picking, watering and, most often, weeding. Mike has finished tilling the hoop house and planted a few rows of tomato seedlings. Our goal is to continue harvesting tomatoes, basil and peppers as late as November.

I may have jumped the gun on the melons; turns out it takes longer for them to ripen than I initially thought. Perhaps we will have them by next week though. Our cantaloupe have begun to produce fruit, and quite a bit of it. As I said to another volunteer last week, once they ripen we’ll be in Cantaloupe City.

Our friend Yulia has returned from camp while Alison has departed. We expect her back and ready to bake in about three weeks.

Your moment of Zen:

Mike found this unripened pumpkin in the field; evidently it had been mangled by the lawn mower. I decided to decorate it.

My Giants are doing fabulous. Updates to the Pumpkin Tracker coming soon, I promise!

fledgling eight-ball zucchini

fledgling cousa squash

But don’t think for a moment that the rain kept us from getting work done this weekend. We used the rain time on Saturday to start clearing the hoop house of the weeds that had completely taken over. We’re planning to plant tomatoes, peppers and basil in there so we can harvest those crops as late as November. During our weeding we found a whole bunch of fuzzy yellow caterpillars, which Narineh thoroughly enjoyed playing with. On Sunday we put more basil, fennel and parsley in the field (I’m hoping the fennel will survive this time). The past two days have been spent weeding and picking (our second crop of flat beans is in). I’ve also been painting a sign to take to the Belmont Farmers’ Market, where we expect to have  a booth next Thursday. We’ve mowed down our spent corn field and plowed the field containing the spent beans and peas. Today Peter seeded several rows of beets, swiss chard and spinach in the newly plowed field while a couple other volunteers installed new sinks in the washroom.

Alison and I have seen some interesting wildlife lately. We’re pretty sure we saw a beaver a few days ago; we both thought it was a woodchuck at first, and I’m still not completely sure it wasn’t, but then we both decided it was a beaver after spotting its flat, black tail. Today while visiting my giant pumpkins we saw a skunk hanging out in the watermelon patch. In other exciting animal-related news, we recently acquired three new chickens, including a blue egg layer named Garcia who looks, as Alison put it, like an overgrown pigeon.

Alison has been delighting all the volunteers with her exceptional baking skills. In the past week she’s made a potato torte for lunch and has brought us zucchini bread (made from one of our Big Momma zucchinis, of course), chocolate-banana bread and a phenomenal key-lime pie.  Come volunteer and you might be lucky enough to sample some of her delicious bakery items!

But these are the trials and triumphs of farming, and although a hot, dry season is not ideal, many of our crops are persevering.  As expected, our zucchini and cucumbers are giving us more fruit than we know what to do with, including some Big Momma zucchinis.  Our tomato vines are loaded with green fruit that should ripen in about two weeks or so. Our recent seedings of beans, zucchini, cucumbers and acorn squash have all germinated and both our watermelon and our pumpkin plants have begun to bear fruit.

A tiny fruit on the watermelon vine

Which leads me, inevitably, to my pet project. Yesterday I found the first tiny fruits on my giant pumpkin vines. Sadly, I had to pick them off; you’re supposed to wait until the vine has grown about ten feet from the main root before beginning a fruit. But still, it was a huge milestone. And, of course, I took pictures:

So far I’ve found and removed a total of three tiny fruits. Very eager for the day when I will be able to let them grow instead of picking them off.

That’s all for now. I hope you’ll overcome the heat and drop on by to see us!

Most of this beautiful day was taken up by routine tasks. Since our current dry spell has no end in sight, watering has become a major priority. We’ve had a slow but steady stream of customers, so picking and maintaining the stand also takes up a good deal of time. And as always, there are many, many weeds to be pulled. I was able to transplant some fennel into the herb garden and plan to get more in tomorrow.

One of the first lessons I learned upon starting at the farm is you can never turn your back on a squash. Our zucchini are producing like crazy and it takes vigilance and a keen eye to pick them before they become huge and less flavorful. The cucumbers have just begun to yield fruit, so I imagine in a day or two keeping up with them will be a similar struggle.

In other squash-related news, my giant pumpkin vines continue to thrive. While I’m impatient for them to start producing fruit, realistically I couldn’t be more pleased with their progress. Their vines are nice and thick and their leaves are the size of elephant ears.

We may be able to scavenge a few more snap peas, but for the most part it looks like the peas are done. The spinach is not far behind, though we will be doing a second seeding of spinach soon. Mike has given his artichokes a thumbs up, and we expect to be selling them tomorrow. The zinnias are beginning to bloom, so flower enthusiasts should drop on by. Peter has said that he expects the corn to be ready by the 4th. Visit the land-to-the-stand page for an up-to-date list of what’s available.

This being my first full year on the farm, I’m only now beginning to really appreciate how effervescent some crops are. The snap peas, which began producing about two weeks ago, are on their way out and will probably be gone by the end of the week. Shell peas are in the same boat. The warm weather has caused much of our spinach to start bolting, (growing flowers) giving it a more bitter taste the makes it more or less unsaleable (though the chickens don’t seem to mind). Get these crops while you can, for soon they’ll be no more.

Fortunately the more experienced members of our team were prepared for such things, and with this in mind we did a second seeding of zucchini and cucumbers today. In a month or so we should have a variety of squash for sale, including both standard and eight ball zucchini as well as cousa and yellow squash. We did a third seeding of green beans (we are picking from the first while the second round is flourishing in the back field). We also seeded acorn squash to be harvested in the fall– because who can argue with a classic?

Speaking of squash, have you folks heard the news about my giant pumpkins? We have four vines going of a variety of pumpkin that are said to easily yield 200lb fruit, but with my fanatical devotion, hard work and unhealthy adoration, I’m determined to make it more. Currently they are only vines, about a week or two behind the rest of the pumpkins in the patch, but impressive nonetheless. They are my baby-giants. I will be taking photos to track their progress. We plan to raffle off the biggest one at the end of the season. Raffle tickets should be available for $1 each at the stand soon.

Mike was very excited to harvest his first artichokes today. We’ll let you know when they’re available at the stand.

I have updated the volunteer page (http://sergifarms.wordpress.com/volunteer/) and the land-to-the-stand page (http://sergifarms.wordpress.com/from-the-land-to-the-stand-whats-for-sale/), so please check them out.

Tomorrow promises to be hot and humid, so let’s keep our fingers crossed for some much-needed rain to take the edge off the heat and water our crops, which, despite our best efforts, are on the thirsty side.

We’ve now got lots to sell you, though still no corn. The corn stalks are doing very well though as are the tomatoes- they’re actually on the vines though, and they’re nice and fat. As Naima said today, “Soon they will grow red.”

We’ve now got snap peas, shell peas, string beans, flat beans, two varieties of lettuce, garlic scapes, broccoli, and zucchini.

Right now is the time of year where we try to do the last of the planting, a huge amount of weeding, and quite a bit of picking. I’ll admit that weeding is my second least favorite activity (picking up rocks gets the honor of being the first), especially when it’s in the blazing sun, but it does give us all a chance to socialize.

There’s talk of us having a stand at the Farmer’s Market sometime in July; that’s still pending but hopefully we’ll be able to as it was really fun last year and as it really helps spread the word for the unfortunately rather obscure farm.

Narineh has come up with a new concept: Calling people bad hats. It started with my hat going to jail as, in her words, “Your hat is very bad because it listens to you.”

Later, it turned into, “Julia, you’re a bad hat and you need to go to jail because you listen to some naughty hats.”

I asked her why the hats are bad, and she says, “Because they listen to you.”

She and Sharisse spent a great amount of the last couple of days trying to keep me in jail, but today, she decided that I’m now I’m a good hat. I believe that the concept of bad hats comes from Madeline and the Bad Hat (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3r7e5F0gp8). Ah, I’m listening to this video, and it’s bringing back so many memories; I used to love Madeline.

Well, it’s past my bedtime (whatever that is), and anyway, I’m tired.

So I say good night now, and I hope you enjoy a month’s worth of Leslie.

Yulia

P.S. Today would be the 186th birthday of Lord Kelvin and the 118th birthday of Pearl S. Buck.

P.P.S. Today is the 88th birthday of Eleanor Parker.

Not to say that a lot did not get done. The stakes for the tomatoes are up, they just need to be strung now. Cabbage has been planted. Today, we’re planning on planting carrots and swiss chard, which I’m definitely excited about.

Peter (not Peter Sergi) who was here a few times last year came again on Saturday with his friend Dan, both of whom are planning on coming back again. Nina and Hannah came for quite a long time yesterday, and they have made plans to come often throughout the summer.

The other piece of good news is that we have had many customers coming for our (currently) four varieties of produce. The lettuce is flourishing and will soon be ready. I will mention it on the blog when it is for sale.

I have promised Mike that I will put up this Narineh-ism:

Lately, Narineh has been wary around me, because I don’t think that the kid has ever seen me clean. So yesterday when Hannah, Nina, Mike, Hermik, and I were around her, she says, “Julia, you’re a big glob of dirt.”

We ask her if anyone else is, and as everyone except Mike have just come by and haven’t been working for a couple of hours, and she says, “No one else is a big glob of dirt, only Julia.”

So we ask her, what about Mike? He’s been working longer than I have. She says, “Daddy’s pretty dirty but that’s okay.” And then, “I have a new rule! Everyone in the world is going to be clean! No dirty people!”

Gosh, I hope that bill never gets passed; it’s way too much fun being dirty.

By the way, I’m going off to camp for a month in less than a week, so Leslie has volunteered to take up blog duty. Leslie is a fantastic writer, so she is more than qualified for the job. She’s going to be way better at this than I am.

It rained yesterday evening, so I’m really hoping that that will have cooled down the temperature as the heat has been almost intolerable lately. So once again, please come by the farm; we hope to see you.

Yulia

P.S. Today would be the 160th birthday of Daniel Carter Beard.

P.P.S. Today is the 72nd birthday of Ron Ely and the 57th birthday of Salomé.

And happy Father’s Day and Summer Solstice!