Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 21 No 6–July 19, 2016

Dry-Dry-Dry (again)

News from the Fields & Farm:  We spent a lot of the week weeding the beds in the all the fields (main, back and round fields). The newly seeded beans are up and the newly seeded squash are a bit spotty and we will replace those that didn’t germinate.

 

The Heirloom tomatoes from the fields are almost ready to harvest. They are probably a few weeks away. We have a lot of cherry tomatoes this year.

 

The zucchini are producing nicely and the second planting is almost ready. We also have a third planting coming along.

 

Our seedings from last week should be going into the field in about week. The first stage of seeding is in flats (as pictured below). Once they are up we then transplant into cells so that the individual plants can establish good roots. Then they are planted into the field rows. All in all this takes about 3 weeks, then depending on variety another 5-8 weeks until harvest. We continue this rotation throughout the season to maintain a continuous harvest!

Our winter squash field is doing well and we do hope to get some good rain for them to continue to grow and produce flowers so we have some great winter squash in a few months.

 

Seeded flats – another week and the plants will go into the fields

Franklin Greenhouse Report: We continue to harvest some tomatoes form the greenhouse and are happy with the progress of the eggplant, radishes, peppers and Oriental greens. All the seeded beds are up and growing. 

80’ row of eggplant

 

Weather report: This week we were back to dry weather with no rain. The heat & humidity returned. We have our irrigation system in full swing. So far this month about 1” of rain has fallen at the farm. Historically, the Sussex weather station received over 6” of rain in July 2013, 3 ½” in July 2014, and 2” in July 2015. The two reservoirs we pass on Route 23 South are both very low and that reconfirms our dry-dry-dry weather.