In this episode, Lowell and Eldon talk about the first couple of weeks of the Corn Maze & Pumpkin Patch as well as the current project of trying to get all of the strawberries planted. It's a busy time of the year, but we pretty much always say that... and it pretty much always is! :)
A biweekly conversation around what has been going on here at Yoders' Farm in Rustburg, Virginia. We are a four generation farm providing "Locally grown, gourmet produce & family friendly activities." That includes a PYO Strawberry Patch, Hydroponic Tomatoes, and in the fall we have a Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze.
**The following is an auto-generated transcript. Its accuracy is likely not perfect...**
**Eldon:** [00:00:00] Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of conversations with Yoder's farm I'm Elden and LOLs here with me today. We're outside. He's watering some strawberry plants. Welcome to the podcast. Little.
**Lowell:** Yeah.
Thanks. So he tracked me down.
**Eldon:** Yeah. Here we are at, towards then end of September or a corn maze fall season as well underway. I guess we'll just kind of do a quick episode update folks on where we are and what we're up to.
**Lowell:** We're in the front yard,
**Eldon:** Well,
**Lowell:** strawberry plans.
**Eldon:** yeah. Alright. So you've been planting strawberries most of the week. Um how's that been going?
**Lowell:** Well, It goes like most other things we do around here there are challenges and that doesn't mean. [00:01:00] Yeah, smoothly as we like, we've made pretty good progress, actually I'm pretty pleased overall Let's see. Today's the is it the, 30th?
**Eldon:** I think, so I think tomorrow is the first,
**Lowell:** Ideally we would have had these things all and a week ago, but
**Eldon:** yeah,
**Lowell:** we only got our plants
**Eldon:** last Saturday towards the end of the day. Yeah.
**Lowell:** so.
**Eldon:** Hopefully you can get them in
**Lowell:** said before.
you work with what you have to work with,
**Eldon:** Have we said that it's at least what
**Lowell:** sure that we, say that pretty much every episode that's what's called farming.
**Eldon:** Yeah, that is true.
**Lowell:** Yeah.
the farming battle, I guess. Yeah. The plants planting is going pretty well. We are ahead of last year, so that's good. A little bit. cooler temperatures.
So, well it's not, we had some very some nice, cool nights and [00:02:00] the daytime highs have been ranging from pleasant to slightly warm, like
low eighties and a little cooler makes it easier to get your plants established. Uh, without we generally don't, uh, over use overhead sprinklers to establish plants, unless it's
**Eldon:** they're, once they're in the plastic
**Lowell:** Yeah, that's what I meant. Um, I mean, it's, best, but it's also a lot of work to set up just for that. now. Some years ago when we were planting earlier. Like if you're planning on the first part of September ish range and it's really hard to establish them with that. Some sort of, unless you get a rain once you get a rain, then you're pretty much good. but We're using waterwheel transplanter and that's dumping a little bit of water around the [00:03:00] roots.
**Eldon:** and then you're pumping water into the
**Lowell:** water like crazy
Through the drip.
**Eldon:** the drip.
**Lowell:** Yeah. which It just takes awhile to get. Uh, uh, bed totally saturate. and then see, there's always a balance, because if you try to do too much pumping like a couple of days before you plan. then you end up your rose, especially the bottoms of the roads.
They turn into swamps and they leach out into the alleys. I mean, into the space between the rows, which is where he tracked her drives and then you're fighting. mud trying to
**Eldon:** And you leave a big tire
**Lowell:** yeah. So you can't, So there's a juggle, you got to try to hydrate your beds without turning your field to swamps. They can plant.
Then once you plant them, pretty much can run all the drift you want
**Eldon:** I wonder how that varies.
[00:04:00] Some other like other soil types, like a Sandy or soil, maybe it wouldn't be as big of a problem, but you know, Sandy, your soil might not hold water as well either.
I don't
**Lowell:** I think that's true. Um, but also we have a little bit of elevation. change I mean, it's not bad this year. how our fields lay it's. I mean, it's about as flat as a year and yet here in our part of
**Eldon:** things different this year, as far as location down there. Yeah.
**Lowell:** But it always the ends of your res, but, but if you're really flat it probably wouldn't do that as bad. anyway, we're working with.
it planting. It's going pretty well.
**Eldon:** There's some showers in the Raya and the radar and the weather next week, maybe,
**Lowell:** Yeah. So we get them in and keep everything
**Eldon:** hoping we can
**Lowell:** happy until they, I just, I always feel better. Once you get a rain on the top, then it feels like your plants are [00:05:00] well-established and settled in. And
**Eldon:** Are you going to be able to plant something today? I know some of your help is not available to begin
**Lowell:** yeah, probably, maybe this towards this afternoon or the
**Eldon:** Very good.
**Lowell:** It takes, you know, we plant with three people you need to on the transplanter, some people plan with five people.
**Eldon:** Two people behind on the
**Lowell:** Well, people did different ways. Some people have someone walking and making sure they're in everything's right. Or some people, they actually have four seats on the transplanter and a tractor driver and
**Eldon:** Well, it seems like the back one would surely rub.
**Lowell:** Yeah. I don't know how they do it.
**Eldon:** I wonder if, yeah,
**Lowell:** we do the best we can
**Eldon:** I guess if you had four, you could drive a little faster hopefully
**Lowell:** Probably
**Eldon:** yeah,
**Lowell:** plant every other one.
**Eldon:** sure. Very good. Well, it's that, that's kind of the update [00:06:00] on strawberry planting as far as I know.
**Lowell:** Yeah, I mean the other big thing is pumpkin harvest. So that's always this time of the year Corn maze, pumpkin harvest. You know, there's lots, lots that could be done
that's probably what we'll actually worked on today when we're not planting. is Cutting more pumpkins, and moving them around. And We have
you know, some fields that are farther away that people can't walk to.
and luck com comes up and lugged them up
**Eldon:** Plenty to do plenty to do, as we say, almost every time,
**Lowell:** the um, but overall, the fall season. has been going well.
**Eldon:** Yeah. I
**Lowell:** what's your impression of
**Eldon:** Well, this, this weekend will be our third weekend. I believe. Um, it looks like a nice weekend as far as [00:07:00] weather's concerned. Uh, But we're only open Friday and Saturday, which is kind of how we start our season.
And then in October we switched to a few more evenings throughout the week. Uh, yeah, it's, it's gone pretty well. So far, the first couple of weekends always kind of primed the pump as far as getting people into fall mood, or maybe they just slowly transitioned that way themselves. But, um, yeah, having here in October, definitely.
**Lowell:** last weekend was Busier, maybe the norm. Well,
**Eldon:** I think it was about the same as last year on that weekend,
**Lowell:** yeah.
**Eldon:** but we were rained out last year on that weekend on the Friday, I think.
**Lowell:** Well, I think like if you get a pleasant weekend in September, it you know, feels
fallish and people come out and do fall things. If it's um, Warm. It really shut, sat down. I was just looking here to see [00:08:00] how many more weekends we have a thought. Maybe we're about halfway through, but, but we're
**Eldon:** five after this one. Is that right?
**Lowell:** We have 1, 2, 3, 4 more like, full weekends.
**Eldon:** and then the first Saturday in November.
**Lowell:** November, we're open for one last hurrah for anyone who didn't get through the corn maze that really wants to.
**Eldon:** Yeah.
Pumpkin sales basically dead at that point, but.
**Lowell:** walk over this way.
**Eldon:** That's
**Lowell:** down there on that corner, haven't been well-watered.
**Eldon:** I think I ain't see they're taller up here. No, it's probably
**Lowell:** have only been laying or sitting here for like four days.
**Eldon:** yeah. Yeah,
**Lowell:** Can't be that much different here. Let me wrap this hose around your
**Eldon:** no, please. Don't.
**Lowell:** while I do.
**Eldon:** Yeah, I don't know. There's not a whole lot more to say about the false stuff. It's going. Okay. Having some staffing issues potentially. And, uh, [00:09:00] some fun things to work through there, but
**Lowell:** I think the whole world is having staffing
**Eldon:** yeah. Well, most of ours, it just happens to be, uh, a weekend or so when, uh, or help or as other plans.
So I think it'll work out if we can make it through that weekend, but that's what I thought last weekend when we had the same issue. So I'm not sure. Hopefully
**Lowell:** The, um, the corn maze we had that shot ran about a week ago and that's
**Eldon:** That was
**Lowell:** greened it back up. And, uh, I think it's in pretty good shape.
**Eldon:** that was like our first rain really in the month almost.
Wasn't it? Something like that.
**Lowell:** Yeah. We had rain right before he made the strawberry beds, which was,
**Eldon:** I was in September a bit.
**Lowell:** Like the third and fourth, I think So
**Eldon:** So it was about three, three and a half
**Lowell:** but that was really
**Eldon:** but yeah it was really [00:10:00] timely
**Lowell:** You know, there are pros and cons to everything and it has been more dry lately. The pumpkin quality has been outstanding. Yeah. Like we're picking them in the field.
There's just not hardly any rotten ones.
**Eldon:** year seems to just
**Lowell:** Yeah, a few of my specialty ones, Maybe didn't do quite as good every year Their specialty ones are hit or miss a little bit, but the, um, like, especially the regular orange Jacqueline or types, the they're just stacked in there, And, but they're holding very well, The temperatures haven't been too crazy hot. Like if you get too much heat.
hard on them, especially heat and wet, Um, but they're in good shape. And then we're Cutting them right off the vine and that leaves you with some nice
stem
**Eldon:** of do that throughout the season,
**Lowell:** Yeah, we do. It keeps them fresh. Or if they stay on the van until [00:11:00] you tell you, you need them. So we try to cut kind of what we need for each weekend. and so forth.
**Eldon:** Very
**Lowell:** I've been pretty, pretty happy with our.
Quality. So that's kind of the state of things out of, I don't know nothing too
**Eldon:** greenhouses yo have some tomatoes planted under
**Lowell:** house is planted and they're starting to bloom I came and saw a small green tomato in there.
like very small. So.
**Eldon:** At what point do they start requiring more vine work? It won't be too long.
**Lowell:** they need then work Right. now. See, it's just that time of the year when there's lots to do,
**Eldon:** kind of comes
**Lowell:** I've got more drip out a Hookup today, we're not planting.
And here, if you [00:12:00] stick your
**Eldon:** Well, you needed some more staff.
**Lowell:** now that will allow me to pull this hose around here.
**Eldon:** Yeah.
**Lowell:** we go. There we go.
**Eldon:** Sad enough, or you want a little
**Lowell:** I want to keep going. It's so handy to be able to work and do the podcast on same time,
**Eldon:** uh, this year he didn't plan plant set up any sprinklers. So he's watering all of these plugs by hand.
**Lowell:** Well, normally I set up sprinklers to do this, a newer. planting right away
**Eldon:** Yeah, that's what I just said,
**Lowell:** I can hear what you said.
**Eldon:** So that's one downfall to doing the podcast this way. It's a little harder to
**Lowell:** I don't think we're going to, well, if we get done planting this week, I'll be surprised,
**Eldon:** yeah, me too. Unfortunately.
**Lowell:** I think we can get really close if we
**Eldon:** [00:13:00] Kinda depends on that little, uh, staffing thing. Oh man. Yeah. It's just trying to juggle everybody and make it all happen. It gets a little interesting sometimes.
**Lowell:** also been planting the fields that are farthest away from the house,
**Eldon:** Okay.
**Lowell:** Um,
which that's just, I don't know why that all is. The varieties that needed to, well, I guess we talk a little bit about that. So we're,
**Eldon:** the varieties you're
**Lowell:** have same amount of Albion's this year that we've had other years, we kind of have a number that seems to work well for us, And Albion's really like.
to be in earlier. We really wish we could have got them in by the 10th of September or earlier,
**Eldon:** We always have to have something to hope [00:14:00] you can do next year.
**Lowell:** It's been really hard to get well this year the one supplier said they couldn't even get me how beans. And so I quickly scrambled around to another supplier and they had Albion's, but it's really hard to get Alvin's in a timely way for some reason.
**Eldon:** Huh What is the weird
**Lowell:** them when we got them and they're pretty small. I ended up they're nice plugs but the
I mean, the the roots were nice. So they pulled out of the trays. Fine. But they were none too big.
**Eldon:** Yeah. Have we talked about the supply she's at, on the podcast?
**Lowell:** we talked about that. Most times you don't really
**Eldon:** Well, I don't know.
**Lowell:** just, I don't even know. exactly
**Eldon:** had kind of happened in the last
**Lowell:** what the problem is. If it's stuffing, I mean, the tips come from Canada, so.
I don't know.
**Eldon:** Yeah.
**Lowell:** If it's labor issues up [00:15:00] there, or I don't know. But
**Eldon:** Just issues there's
**Lowell:** people have been, I mean, there. is this an exclusive to us.
There are other people here
**Eldon:** No, just, there was, uh, a couple of propagators who decided they were going to quit growing and they had some, some major failures last year or this year or something.
**Lowell:** Yeah, that's part of it, but this is more of a supply issue in Canada, I think.
**Eldon:** Okay. Anyway, you were talking about varieties,
**Lowell:** Yeah. so Albion's, so I've been planting in an order.
kind of what needs to be planted soon as. So it's very
uh, you know, wish could have got these in, like I said, two weeks earlier, so we've planned our Albion's first. now,
we're working on Ruby June, which ideally would have also been in a while ago?
And [00:16:00] these are the varieties that seem to need is, um, a little more time to develop in the fall.
Then the regular old channel.
**Eldon:** Yeah.
**Lowell:** Even though I have a friend who plants Chandlers around here, a little south of us, um, right around the middle of September. And he does pretty well with that. So you could argue that Chandler's should be.
planted earlier than what we're going to get him in this year too.
Definitely. But I think maybe Chandler's are a little bit more forgiving
**Eldon:** So Ruby June's Albion's Chandler's anything else? Major change
**Lowell:** We have a few sweet Charlies, which is a, it's an early Berry, but we cut back some on that.
And then we only planted like three or four rows just to get us a few for the store or a li and then I have some front-end. [00:17:00]
**Eldon:** What was that one?
**Lowell:** Fran terrace. I actually, I have some Mercedes here forgot about them. So
**Eldon:** Either those Nunes.
**Lowell:** think we planted all of these last year.
**Eldon:** Okay.
**Lowell:** I did plan a few more more said this year than last year. Cause account liked them.
**Eldon:** Very good.
**Lowell:** planting in order, I guess, that they have importance is what we're doing.
**Eldon:** Yeah. Well, is there anything else we should update the fine people that spend their precious time listening to our podcast?
**Lowell:** no, I think that pretty much catches people up. So sorry to bore you with the details of what's going on here, but that's the fact.
**Eldon:** Yeah. All right. Well, if you've listened this far, thank you for listen. As always you can find out more about [00:18:00] everything we're up to every years, farm.com. Follow us on Facebook or Instagram, if you want more detailed updates, uh, more regularly. But, uh, thanks for listening. And we will chat with you again at some point.
See ya.
**Lowell:** let me spray you here.