Catalpa Ridge News–October 2, 2017

Cooler Temperatures Return to the Farm

Last Sunday we covered the greenhouse and the temperature was approaching the mid 90’s and on Sunday it was struggling to get to 60-degrees. We still have not received much rain. We have noticed that with the higher temperatures during last week and the lack of rain appears to be postponing the fall foliage in the area. We can see the colors subtly changing but not the big bursts of color we usually see. The apple season is upon us and there are a number of great varieties available now.

The potatoes have been harvested and will be in today’s delivery and again in the future. This week we have Adirondack Blues. The winter squash will start to be delivered next week. The sunchokes are almost ready to harvest and we anticipate them being ready in about 2 weeks. The tomatoes are pretty much done but we can probably squeeze out some more deliveries over the next few weeks, just as long as we don’t get a heavy frost. Our second planting of zucchini will probably be ready in about 2 weeks as well. All of our oriental greens in the greenhouse have some bug problems. Since we don’t spray they may become a crop loss.

We made a trip to Saugerties on Saturday to pick up some new varieties of garlic to plant for next year. A few varieties we haven’t had in a few years are: Marengo, Georgia Fire and Russian Red.