Our water pump that we have been struggling with over in our new fields finally went kerplunck last week. Unfortunately it broke before we got our new pump delivered and installed. We will not be able to plant our 5 acres of Quinoa for the CSA this year. Currently we have all our potatoes, dry beans, and winter squash planted in those fields. All the crops have gotten watered a couple times and have germinated thankfully. We have even begun harvesting our first succession of potatoes that I hope you all enjoyed last week! The good news is that these particular crops can all be dry farmed if sown when the soil is saturated enough which we were able to do. We hope to not have reduced production yields due to the lack of available water but we will just have to wait and see.
Our blackberries are finally starting to produce berries! We have two varieties planted that come on at different times to extend our blackberry season. Our first variety has struggled with setting decent fruit and we have been trying to determine the causes. It appeared as though there was irregular pollination and multiple pest problems. We also had an inkling that the irrigation was not sufficient enough and once John had time to further investigate it turned out that our lines (which are supposed to last for ten years and this is the second) were all clogged up. He flushed the lines out but they remained clogged and it was too time consuming to unclog them by hand so we ran new lines down the rows and the berries are finally receiving the proper amount of water. This lack of water most likely stressed out the plants leaving them susceptible to pests and disease. We are really happy to see nice looking berries setting on the canes and I can tell you that they are very tasty!