{"id":5224,"date":"2015-02-09T10:19:02","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T10:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/?p=5224"},"modified":"2016-04-08T10:20:50","modified_gmt":"2016-04-08T10:20:50","slug":"a-note-from-farmer-al-february-9th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/a-note-from-farmer-al-february-9th\/","title":{"rendered":"A note from farmer Al : February 9th"},"content":{"rendered":"Dear CSA Members,\r\n\r\nThe big story this week is rain. It comes at a good time...\u201cjust in time\u201d in fact.\u00a0As of noon on Sunday, my estimate is 2 inches for us here on the farm.\u00a0It\u2019s perfect for our barley crop, which was planted January 9 and moistened\u00a0by December rains. The germination rate was really good and the roots have\u00a0been growing vigorously into that December moisture. But the plants are now\u00a0a good 4 inches tall and are in need of water to keep growing vigorously and\u00a0really take off. With a little warm sunshine which we should get this week, I\u2019m\u00a0expecting the barley to double in height by next Sunday!\r\n\r\nThe rain is also great for the trees we just finished planting the day before\u00a0it started raining! In a normal \u201cdry\u201d year, we would have to tank water to the\u00a0just planted trees with a 400 gallon orchard sprayer tank fitted with 2 long\u00a0hoses, to get them started. Pulled by a tractor, the rig passes between rows with\u00a0a man on each hose walking from tree to tree drenching the soil around each\u00a0new tree. Rain is faster and better because it picks up nitrogen from the air\u00a0and takes it into the soil.\r\n\r\nThere is one downside to this week\u2019s rain; our Apache apricots are starting to\u00a0grow, and are in what\u2019s known as the \u201cred bud\u201d stage. The flower bud has\u00a0swollen, and opened at the tip, revealing the red color of the incipient blossom.\r\n\r\n(In peach trees this is called \u201cpink bud\u201d, as its blossoms are pink). Apricots,\u00a0unlike their stone fruit cousins are definitely susceptible to brown rot blossom\u00a0blight at their red bud stage. And this so called \u201cPineapple Express,\u201d with its\u00a0heavy rain combined with warm temperatures, is the perfect storm for a\u00a0brown rot event in our apricots.\r\n\r\nHopefully, our compost and compost tea applications have helped to control\u00a0the damage. As I am writing this, the rain has stopped and wind is whipping\u00a0fiercely outside, which will help dry out the buds. We\u2019ll know by next Sunday\u00a0what damage, if any, may have occurred. We\u2019ll keep you posted!\r\n\r\nOrganically yours,\r\n\r\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Signature of Farmer Al\" src=\"http:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/assets\/FarmerAlSig.gif\" width=\"250\" \/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear CSA Members, The big story this week is rain. It comes at a good time&#8230;\u201cjust in time\u201d in fact.\u00a0As of noon on Sunday, my estimate is 2 inches for us here on the farm.\u00a0It\u2019s perfect for our barley crop, which was planted January 9 and moistened\u00a0by December rains. The germination rate was really good [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-note-from-farmer-al"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5HwAU-1mg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5226,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5224\/revisions\/5226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}