Catalpa Ridge News - June 25, 2018

Lettuce Begin!!

We had hoped to start the deliveries last week, but the weather did not cooperate. We have had our fair share of rain, cold temperatures, then periods of too high temps along with some dry periods. The irrigation system had to be hooked up and as of writing this news we are having a downpour!

Farmer Rich and the crew have planted the fields and greenhouses for deliveries over the last few weeks.  Lisa, Dory and Michael have all returned crew and we have added Kathy this year. They all assisted with the transplants in the spring and now transitioned to field work. Some of the fields were just too wet to work in and we were just recently able to get into them.

Lettuce, potatoes, broccoli, chicory, chard, and cauliflower have all been planted from transplants and are doing well. We have also planted three rows of Heirloom tomatoes with varying harvest timeframes from early season to late season (55 - 85 days). We hope to have the start of the tomato harvest by the last week of July.

The greenhouses are all full of greens, eggplants, a row of tomatoes, Shishito peppers. These Shishito peppers have been a very popular item at our transplant sales. About 1 in 10 peppers are hot, though not too hot. We have planted a great variety of both sweet and hot peppers in the field in many different colors; purple, white, green, orange, red and more!

The crew seeded zucchini in the back field and last week they were able to get in the main field and transplanted more tomatoes, peppers, herbs. Additionally, we seeded cucumbers, beans and more zucchini. These are not up yet but anticipate with warmer temperatures coming they should take off. This week we hope to seed Brussel sprouts, cabbage, and winter squash for the autumn harvest.

Thank you for your support and we look forward to a bountiful harvest year.