Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 20 No 15–September 21, 2015

Harvest Moon Coming !

The temperatures are trending lower and the fields are not drying out as quickly as they had been. We were fortunate to receive some rain last week and that had helped out tremendously. We are irrigating the back field. The cabbage crop are doing well and almost ready for harvest.

 

We have decided where to plant the garlic for next year and we did spend some time preparing the beds. We first have to remove the plastic, then till up the soil with certain soil amendments and fertilizer then lay down new plastic.

 

Our fallow field was brush-hogged and this field will not be tilled up until the spring for planting.

 

Franklin Greenhouse Report:

 

Oriental Greens in the Franklin Greenhouse

 

The Oriental greens, Daikon radishes and peppers continue to produce. The rosemary will probably will be harvested in a few weeks and the eggplant production continues to slow down with these cooler temperatures and shorter days. The radishes that were seeded by Michael have sprouted. We hope that they will be ready for harvest by the end of the season.

Daikon Radishes in the Franklin Greenhouse

 

From the Fields: The tomato production is down and the zucchini and cucumber plants show just some spotty production and are really at the end of their production cycle. The winter squash harvest is beginning this week with butternut squash. The sweet pepper crop has continued though most of the warm weather crops are now “gone by”. A good tip for peppers is to freeze them for using later. We clean them up by slicing and removing the seeds and then store in the freezer in a ziplock freezer bag into portions we would use for a meal.

 

The potatoes will be harvested in the next week or two and onions are curing in the greenhouse. They will be filtered into the deliveries over the next few weeks.

 

Weather Report: Look for the Harvest Moon (the full moon nearest the September equinox) on the night of September 27^th-28^th.  This year it is not just any Harvest Moon it is also a “supermoon” that is staging a Blood Moon eclipse (due to the red appearance of the moon during the eclipse). We will have a total eclipse of the moon and it happens to be the closest supermoon of 2015. The total lunar eclipse will be visible in our area after sunset on September 27^th. It is also occurring during the Jewish holiday Sukot or the Feast of Tabernacles.