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Sunday, June 30, 2013

Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 18 No 4–July 1, 2013

Happy 4th of July !

We rolled over some of the harvested beds with tomatoes, onions early in the week. Any plants that still remained in the greenhouse were planted into the fields. We still have a few more cherry tomato plants to go. We re-seeded more lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts which will be transplanted later in the season.

The round field is still not workable, but we are having great harvests from the back field. The fava beans are scheduled to be harvested within the next 2 weeks as is the garlic.

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We have some maintenance work to do on the front field due to the heavy rains we have had has increased the weeds. The upper field is still too wet to run the brush-hog through it. This is on the agenda for maintenance work as long as we have a reprieve from the rain.

The crew continues to do an amazing job while working in this heat. Michael is scheduled to return by the 11th of July so we will be at full staff.

As the transplants are being planted in the field, this is making room in the greenhouse for the soon to be harvested garlic to cure.

Franklin Greenhouse Report: The microgreens were harvested from the Franklin greenhouse as was the Tokyo Bekana. We have seeded some new Oriental greens. The ginger is doing well, though it seems to be slower than last year at this time. The eggplant looks stunning and should soon be harvested. We have two varieties of eggplant growing in the Franklin Greenhouse so some white and Ping Tong Long varieties will be in the harvest over the next week or two.

From the Fields: The crops are actually doing better than they were last year at this time. One of which is the escarole where both plantingclip_image002[4]s have produced well. There is probably another harvest of escarole on the horizon next week. The field planted eggplants are doing well, though the flea beetles seem to like them. This affects the leaves more than the eggplant themselves. The cukes and zukes are doing well and the zucchini should start showing up in the deliveries soon.

Animal report: So far the animals are outside the field fences. We do have a “crop” of baby rabbits but they are just noshing on the greens in the picnic area and smile at us while we are having lunch. The mother rabbit seems to like taking a dirt bath in the middle of the road to the picnic area. No major or minor damage to any field crops has been noticed to date. It may be that a stray field cat is on patrol in the area keeping away the unwanted creatures.

Weather report: It was a super-hot week and to deal with the hot temperatures we started our days very early in the morning. Most of the work was done before the heat of the day got the best of us. We have a standing rule that the crew decides when to stop work for the day. We don’t want anyone to get heat stroke. Another few inches of rain fell during the week. The first inch we really needed though the second wasn’t. Overall, the crops are holding up well during this time. It is summertime after all. Fortunately this week we have cooler temperatures in the forecast, though with rain predicted almost every day.

 

July 1st- Pick of the Week: click on the links below or to the right to bring you to the delivery specific to your pick-up location. Deliveries will be of similar variety & poundage, but may contain different items at anytime during the season. Occasionally, some crops are ready to harvest but not enough to deliver to all our drop-off locations. What we do is start to filter them in each week to a different drop-off until there is enough to delivery to everyone.

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