7/1/08 - Today we uncovered the cucumbers and put up the trellis for them.  We've never tried growing cukes on a trellis before so it should be an interesting experiment.  We're going to have to keep a close eye on them because this has been a very bad year for the Striped Cucumber Beetle.  We've also been hand picking a few Colorado Potato Beetles off of the eggplant, but there haven't been too many so far.  I fertilized all of the transplants with Neptune's Harvest 2-4-1 (OMRI listed) at a rate of 1/4 cup per 3 gallons of water.

We continued with weeding the onions and carrots, and thinning the turnips and broccoli rabe.  The second planting of corn is already over an inch tall!  We made our first deliveries of the season to the Lakewood Inn Restaurant and the Bread Box Cafe. 

7/2/08 - Today is the BIG DAY!  Aside from being our anniversary, it's the day we meet with the inspector from MOFGA about getting the farm certified organic!!  She arrived at 9 am, and spent several hours going over our certification application, reviewing all of the farm records for the past three years and then ended with a walk-through inspection of the entire operation, including the new seed starting room in the garage, the greenhouse, barn and all of the fields.  She had several helpful suggestions about how we can improve our record-keeping, especially about when and how we apply things like fertilizer and approved pesticides.  I think things went extremely well and hope that soon we can say that Stonewall Farm & Gardens is CERTIFIED ORGANIC, and can start using the "MOFGA CERTIFIED ORGANIC" logo here on the website and on all of our marketing literature.

As it turns out, our inspector Alison is the "Maine Potato Lady" who runs a wonderful farm just north of here in Parkman, ME that sells certified seed potatoes, garlic, onions and shallots, among other things.  She has a wonderful selection of garlic that is acclimated to central Maine.  We'll be ordering some from her for this fall's garlic planting.

Later this afternoon I tilled between the rows of corn, and most of the western consolidated garden plot to keep the weeds down.  Things are looking great!
 
We ended the day with a wonderful anniversary dinner at the Bread Box Cafe in Waterville.