Magicland Farms 2008 News

July 7, 2008

While the winter seemed harder than most, (primarily because of the snow and its reluctance to leave Newaygo County), it was unusually kind to trees, shrubs and perrenials. The lowest temperature all winter was just a couple of degrees below 0. Especially noteworthy was the complete lack of true winter damage to our up and coming new peach orchard! While we hope to have a fair supply of several types of peaches this year, there are no plans for us selling them by the 1/2 bushel--this year anyway. Our peaches are so yummy and sought after by so many, we don't think it would be fair to sell them all to just a few people--and that is likely to happen if we started selling them in quantity. Hopefully, we will have enough next year to supply those who want to can and freeze them and those who want to eat them fresh. Just about all our crops are looking really good this year. The exception are the apples. While we should have a fairly good crop, spring frosts have not only reduced the crop (there are no Empire apples this year, for instance) they have caused a moderate amount of surface damage to some varieties. We will have to do a good job of grading. The customers should benefit here because we will be selling these frost damaged apples at a slight discount--nothing wrong with the apples except for some won't be as nice looking as others. Magicland Farms isn't the only farm hit by the apple frost. The famous Ridge area north of GR apparently only has a half crop and the Hart fruit area has been hit even harder! So we are not alone! We started picking beans on Friday the fourth of July. This is roughly about normal. Through the years, our average date we start selling sweet corn is July 13. This year it will either be July 18, July 19 or July 21 (July 20 is a Sunday). The corn looks really nice. By the way we again made over 25 plantings and the last planting for the year was July 4th.

July 22, 2008

Well, we started picking our xtra-early bi-color sweet corn for sale yesterday. This, no doubt, is the finest looking first corn we have ever grown. One reason, of course, is that it is surrounded by a short electric fence to keep out raccoons. It was easy to pick since there was little damage and it was fairly ripe. We could have started picking it on the 20th but it was a Sunday. Saturday the 19th would have been too early. I've been following Wholesale Markets in Chicago, Detroit and even New York and Miami. One thing is clear: there isn't much sweet corn being offered for sale. Because of this, prices are much higher than in other years and is primarily dependent on demand since the supply is consistently low. (Even if the supply is low prices will be low if the demand is very weak and vice versa.) One other thing about sweet corn--we made our final planting on July 14. This should be ready the last of September. While we have made consistent plantings--the size of the plantings that will be ready in September are a lot smaller than the ones made to be picked earlier--in other words although we plan on having corn till frost, the late supply will be a lot smaller than the mid season corn.

September 1, 2008

Things I can't believe: (1) I didn't update this page in over a month, (2) September is here already, (3) How busy we've been the last several weeks, (4) The humungous number of deer around all over, and the biggest thing I can't believe: (5) Why oil drillers/oil companies aren't going all out in drilling the oil/natural gas rich Newaygo County area. I've been talking to a number of people through the years about the known oil/gas down there. Also recently, a large farmer not too far from Magicland Farms got so fed up with no one drilling that he drilled on his own farm and hit oil right away and was so pleased he drilled another well! Something doesn't seem right... As I figure from the stories, one may possibly hit oil with a very shallow (500 feet deep) well. Hey, I think Tractor Supply got a special on shovels, maybe...By the way, most of the oil that has been found in Michigan is of light sweet crude type-- which is the highest quality and gets top price. (The Arab oil is real heavy junky stuff and generally gets the lowest prices.)