Farmer Kurt’s Field Notes July 12, 2025: Hurry Up and Wait

You know that feeling when you’re ready to go, fueled up, engine on — and then someone tells you to just sit tight and wait? That pretty much sums up the week here on the farm. It’s been a whole lot of hurry up and wait.

Two wagons of transplants are waiting on the weather to break.

We’ve got two trailer loads of brassicas — cauliflower and collards — sitting in trays, patiently waiting for their moment to shine. The collards are for a major wholesale order, so the pressure’s on. Every day those plants sit in trays, we’re losing growth time. But we need a solid stretch of dry weather to plant them — and instead, the skies keep opening up just enough to halt progress. We get a short planting window, rush to get as much done as we can, and then… rain. Again. And again.

I can’t tell you how many times we’ve sent the crew home early this week. It’s rare this time of year to not have anything to do, but when the fields are soaked, we’re stuck. And stuck doesn’t sit well with me when there’s a giant to-do list growing by the day.

Pedro washes and bunches radishes Saturday.

This mid-July window is one of the most stressful stretches of the season. Not only are we doing full CSA harvests on Mondays and Wednesdays, but we’re also in a critical production phase. Transplanting, weeding, trellising, spraying — it all has to get done. So when the weather breaks, we move fast. Which means I’ve been burning the candle at both ends — staying up late spraying (for both our farm and Dad’s), then turning around and starting again with harvest at sunrise.

Meanwhile, the garlic we harvested last week is now curing in the greenhouse. And let me tell you — that place smells amazing. We lay out the garlic bulbs in a single layer across our greenhouse tables, stems and all, and let them dry down over 2–3 weeks. Curing is the process of pulling the moisture out of the outer layers and stems so the garlic will store long-term without molding. It also helps those bulbs tighten up and develop that papery skin you see on good storage garlic. In a few weeks, we’ll trim the stems and roots, clean them up, and get them ready for you.

We also had Katie from Nutrien Ag out this week to do our first sap analysis of the season — kind of like a blood test for plants. She took samples from the tomatoes, kale, and melons to see how well they’re pulling up micronutrients from the soil. Earlier this year, I invested a lot of time and resources preparing those beds — amending the soil, building biology, feeding the plants — so I’m really curious to see where we’re at. These results will help us dial in our nutrition plan with things like foliar sprays or fertigation. We’ll be doing two more sap tests this season to monitor how the plants change as they grow and fruit.

Other updates from the field:

• We finished hand-weeding the carrots — a painstaking job that’s not for the faint of heart. But they’re looking good now.

• The crew took down the pea trellis and pulled the vines — a bittersweet task, but it’s time to make room for what’s next.

• We trellised another row of tomatoes — those vines are growing like wildfire!

• Radish harvest happened just before the rains rolled in. Unfortunately, the yield was lower than we’d hoped due to weed pressure (purslane galore!). The Agribon row cover protected the crop from pests, but it also made it tough to stay ahead of the weeds. Always a trade-off.

And on a lighter note — we’re celebrating Give Something Away Day this week (July 15 is the official day). We’re planning to have some fun surprises and mini-giveaways in our CSA Facebook group all week long. Keep an eye out — you never know what we’ll be giving away next! We want to invite you to come to Grace Church on Sunday between 9 am and 2 pm to help our church community construct 100 beds for Build a Bed. Our CSA’s host site in Perrysburg is hosting a week of service, and they’re starting it all out with an ambitious goal of constructing 100 beds in 5 hours. As a Perrysburg CSA member, you are invited to just drop by with your kids and help for 30 minutes, an hour — it will be a very fun, hands-on project for our entire community. Please come.

At this point, I’m running on very little sleep and a lot of prayer. What we really need is a good stretch of sunshine to catch up — to get those collards in the ground, finish our transplants, and give the soil a chance to breathe.

Farming teaches you patience whether you like it or not. Sometimes it’s go, go, go — and sometimes, it’s just… wait.
I’m trusting that God will provide the right window at the right time. He always does.

Until next week,
— Farmer Kurt