Catalpa Ridge News–August 21, 2017

More Rain ……

It was another rainy week at the farm. We received 2 1/2” over the course of the week. Farmer Rich thinks this may have been the rainiest season yet. Impact on the crops are as follows:

• The pumpkins, winter squash, potatoes & and the cucumbers in the wetter fields are suffering by being too water logged.

From the Fields

The zucchini, which have done fairly well this year, are coming close to the end of the harvest season. We did another planting a few weeks and they are coming along nicely. The second planting of cucumbers, in a better spot, are also doing well.

The potatoes plan to be harvested in the next week or two. We have red, whites & blue varieties in the mix. Our peppers continue to produce nice fruit, though the hot peppers seem to have slowed down. The really hot ones (such as Ghost and Habanero) are taking really long. Unfortunately the Carolina Reapers never survived transplanting.

The tomatoes right now are producing great, perhaps a bumper crop year. We have problems in some of the fields. The cooler nights along with the plants being too wet yields some diseases that can just collapse the plants overnight. These conditions put a lot of pressure on the plants (and on Farmer Rich too!!).

The cabbage plants are starting the head up (slowly). We seeded some radishes and Oriental greens this week.

Greenhouse Construction: Our heated greenhouse is about 20 years old at this point and was in desperate need of repair. All the joints at the soil line were decayed and starting to break apart. Actually we were surprised that it didn’t collapse over the winter. The only thing holding it together was the plastic. The crew started the repair on Thursdays and continued through Saturday. We hope to complete it next weekend as the crew will be harvesting on Sunday.