This is the last week of the our Spring CSA. We would like to extend a big Thank You to all our CSA members this season. I hope you have enjoyed eating what the farm has provided us each week. We have certainly enjoyed lots of crispy, refreshing salads!
Last week we planted the sweet potatoes. All 2000 plants. I am feeling really good about this because, for the first time ever, we mulched all the pathways with straw! We got the beds all mulched even before the sweet potatoes were planted. By mid summer last year, the grass had grown up to the point that you couldn’t even see the sweet potato vines. We spent many, many hours in July and August hoeing the sweet potatoes and we still didn’t get the whole patch done. I am hoping to avoid a repeat. I have already made a date with a glass of iced tea and a shade tree for later this summer when I can relax and think, “last year I’d have been hoeing the sweet potatoes right about now…” (Of course I really doubt this will happen because s
omething else will surely crop up that needs my urgent attention) The plants will need a quick hand weeding in two or three weeks to pull about any weeds growing up next to the plants or through tears in the plastic mulch, but otherwise I am hoping we can just sit back and watch them grow until it is time to dig them in September.
Of course, getting the sweet potatoes mulched means other things did not get done. The secret to time management on the farm is acknowledging the fact that it will not all get done. I will never cross off everything on the to-do list. When I chose to mulch the sweet potato beds I chose not to spend that time trellising tomatoes, mulching winter squash, or weeding melons. Hopefully I will not come to regret my choices!
