Thistle Control

I took a solo trip to Wisc this past weekend.

Saturday morning was spent on our intern's farm. I learned a lot and also met some nice people from Madison, Platteville and Mineral Point that are CSA shareholders. I worked with the farm employee in setting up irrigation lines so I now have a bit of a better understanding of how the supply line runs, flushing the connections, laying out the driptape and most importantly, placement.

I also did some weeding. It was interesting to see the field saturation from all of the rain and talk with our mentor about his transplanting plans and how the rains are affecting his planting schedule.

He also shared me with me that his goal every year is to have salad greens in the CSA box every week of the season. Last year was the first year he was able to meet that goal and we talked about varieties, planting schedules, etc. I am completely impressed - that is a hard thing to manage. For those that buy salads from the store, or worse buy bagged salads - horror!, this might not be a thought that enters your mind, but having over 300 heads of lettuce every week for over 20 weeks is a major accomplishment.

I spent Sat afternoon at our farm cutting thistle. We have a major thistle problem that I am working to get under control by hand cutting.

Before

After