*Olivia, with a pocket full of poppy pods.*

Greetings, farm friends!

The heatwave is subsiding and your farmers are looking forward to a restful, slightly cooler weekend. Our crew arrived at work between 5-6 a.m. this week, greeting the hot days at the crack of dawn. We managed to accomplish a great deal of harvesting and field work despite it all, and Friday’s weather will be perfect for planting.

With July on the horizon, we’re finally seeing the busy season winding down. Our florist orders for next week are quite small, and we’re taking Thursday and Friday off of farm work. It’s safe to say that the entire Two Boots crew is ready for a long weekend.

Next week we’ll focus on field work and knock out some planning for the coming months. When we return from our long weekend, we’ll focus on planting for fall and cleaning up after our spring crops.

One of the biggest tasks to come is digging and storing all of our ranunculus corms. Once we remove the corms from the tunnels, we’ll seed a buckwheat cover crop. Buckwheat grows quickly, which makes it an ideal cover crop to use in our tunnels when they’re mostly out of use during the peak summer season. It does a great job of suppressing weeds while its in the ground, and after we tarp the buckwheat to kill it, the organic matter serves as a mulch in our tunnels. It’s also great for attracting pollinators! We love to squeeze in cover crops whenever we’re able to. Just as humans need rest, our soil requires an occasional break. Cover cropping is like giving the soil a good meal and a productive nap. Who wouldn’t enjoy that?!

*Can you spot the monarch? It’s hard to get a nice photo of these butterflies but it’s a delight to see them fluttering around the milkweed.*

Sunday Market

We’re back at the Baltimore Farmers’ Market this Sunday, June 29th from 7:00-12:00.

The build your own bouquet bar is around for the summer, enjoy it. This week it includes nigella, yarrow, gooseneck loosestrife, strawflower, and more!

We’ll also have bouquets and assorted bunches of blooms.

We will not be at the market on July 6th!

Thanks for reading, and, as always, we appreciate your steadfast support.

Wishing you all the best, and we’ll be back with another newsletter in two weeks!
Amelia, Elisa, and the Two Boots Crew

Summer Slowdown

Sunday Market