Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 21 No 14–September 13, 2016

 

Hot Weather Returns!

News from the Fields & Farm: 

It is now early September and we are having record high temperatures. We have had to cut back on the hours as it is too hot to work by late morning. The crew is working diligently between 7 am -  11 am each day.

 

It appears we have an abundance of butternut squash this year. We anticipate starting to deliver them next week. We are still good with tomatoes as most of the plants are still producing. The cucumber plants have shut down but we do have a new planting going in.

 

Newly transplanted beets & escarole:

 

Franklin Greenhouse Report: The chard is almost ready to harvest and the beets should be ready in a few weeks. We also have some Daikon radishes doing well. We are trying some South American Sunchokes in the greenhouse. They usually don’t get harvested until very late in the season. This variety is called Oca (originally grown by the Incas).

Cipollini’s curing in the greenhouse:

 

Weather report: In addition to the heat reported earlier, we are also having another dry spell. We were fortunate to receive about ½” of rain during the week. This was both good and bad. The good is that the general crops perked up and the bad was that many of the heirlooms and cherry tomatoes split on the vine after receiving the rain. Since it was so dry and then the switch to the rain they take a lot of water in and split or as we like to say, we have “salsa in the field”. It is unfortunate that this affected the cherry tomatoes this week. Luckily the heirlooms on today’s delivery were harvested prior to the rain.