Raspberries Done for 2013

We opened the high tunnel to let the raspberries go dormant for the winter.  It's supposed to get down into the single digits F over the next couple of days.  My plan is to try to keep the high tunnel open for most of the winter, but I'm not sure if that is a good idea or not.  My hope is that the high tunnel can handle being open when we get high wind storms during the winter. I don't want to close the high tunnel and have the temps popping up and triggering the raspberries to break their dormancy too early, or not be dormant enough and damaging the raspberries with freeze thaw.  Time will tell I guess.  One thing is for sure.  We won't have any greens out of the high tunnel this year.

Berries Too Cold

I think I may have let the raspberries get too cold one night last week.  When I got up in the morning it was 27F at about 5am.  I didn't check to see how long it was down that low, but I figured it had to be quite a while.  I've only run the heater for a few nights this fall, so I turned on the heater in the high tunnel, but I think it was too late. The quality of the ripe berries is poor. I'm hoping that the berries that are still unripe will ripen well, but we won't know until we get some sun on the plants and see how they move forward.  Guess we'll know as the week goes on.

Raspberry Production Year 1

The raspberry plants are producing really well.  We had thought that the first year production would be light, but it turns out that our production is really good for our first year.  So much so that we are getting 4 to 5 pints a day, not including what we're eating (which is substantial).

Raspberry Heat Stress White Drupelet Disorder

We're currently seeing heat stress in our raspberries. It started showing up even before it got extremely hot, but it was limited to one here and there. But the past couple of days we've seen it really hitting the Heritage variety of raspberries.  What we're seeing are some white drupes within the drupelet.

1. Drupe - The fleshy fruit with a single seed. In a raspberry or blackberry, it would be each of the individual tiny round balls of fruit that make up a cluster in what is considered the berry.
2. Drupelet - The individual drupes that in composite are considered the berry on plants such as raspberry or blackberry.

So what we're seeing is called White Drupelet Disorder.  Looking that up I found that it can be caused by a handful of issues, but one being excessive heat.
Imagine that?  A plant that's in a greenhouse, even with its sides open and the end-wall door wide open, would show signs of heat stress in NW Iowa from this past week. The high tunnel weather station showed a hight temp of 109F two days ago.  I'd say that qualifies as excessive heat. The Heritage raspberry variety is more susceptible to the disorder, and the variety showing the most symptoms is Heritage, but the others that are producing right now are showing it here and there too. They don't taste any different, but they aren't very pretty.

Final Chicken Day 2013

The second day of 2013 chicken processing went great.  Our customers are a big part of making it a lot of fun.  Thanks to all of our customers and we look forward to seeing you again next year.  Enjoy your chickens!

Chicken Days August 2013 Today

Today starts the last chickens for 2013.  We caught the chickens last night and I started the scalder this morning.  So far so good. The scalder didn't go out like the July chicken day so I'm hoping that all will be smooth sailing.

July Chickens Day 2

Day one went awesome! The process went so smooth that we were amazed ourselves. The only issue we had was that the scalder flame blew out from the wind shortly after I lit the scalder. I knew I had a problem when I smelled the LP as I crossed the lane.  It really didn't set us back, we just heated water on the stove and on another outside burner, then combined it into the sclading pot and we were ready to go.  Hopefully we run as smoothly today.