We made the local paper! A big thank you to Cameren Westmoreland, the Southern Advocate and others that made this happen. Read last weeks article from the Southern Advocate
Nightshades are the stars of the season! Peppers, eggplant, potatoes and tomatoes are all in the nightshade family. It is tomato boom time. The field tomatoes got off to a rough start this year. The ground was so wet that they just sat there for weeks without growing an inch. The weeds, especially the nutsedge, is really bad. The second planting had problems, too. It was so hot in May when we planted them out that they cooked on the black mulch. We had to replant many of them. Southern blight has struck and taken out a whole 90 foot section. There are stink bugs and fruit worm. Still, even with ALL THIS, the tomatoes are pouring in. I like the sound of that … makes it seem like they are harvesting themselves. It is a lot of work. On Sunday I harvested over 100 pounds from the high tunnel. Monday I picked about 300 pounds in the field. And Patrick is picking tomatoes today, which is Tuesday. Tomorrow the high tunnel tomatoes will need to be picked again and it all starts over. Somehow, we have to find time to do things other than picking tomatoes. Like digging the rest of the potatoes!
This is a great time to get tomatoes by the box. We have 10 pound boxes of tomatoes available at 25% off our retail price. Available varieties include: Juliet plum, Tiren San Marzano type paste, assorted slicing tomatoes (Pink Beauty, Celebrity, Mountain Merit), and assorted heirloom tomatoes.
Seeds are sprouting in the greenhouse for broccoli and cabbage that will be ready in October and November. It is hard to think about the tail end the CSA season right now when it is hot and we are in the thick of it. We are also trying to make beds now so that we have a few weeks to flush out the weed seeds before it is time to plant at the beginning of August (I’ll write more about this method of weed control as the season goes on). But it continues to be a wet summer. Unpredictable storms make it hard to plan and carry out field work.
Remember about a month ago when I was bragging about how we got all the sweet potatoes mulched and weeding was going to be a breeze? It was not to be so. Yes, we did mulch the sweet potatoes, and yes, the weed situation is surely better than it would have been. It is still a weed bonanza. Two things. The soil must be really fertile. Which is great. Even though it makes for really healthy, vigorous weeds. Thing two is the yellow nutsedge. We don’t usually have a big problem with this one. Sure, we get some here and there, but it has never been a major problem. Nutsedge likes it sopping wet and hot. This spring it was both those things and the nutsedge exploded, coming up everywhere. The bio-plastic mulch we use does nothing to stop it.
I think about all those yellow nutsedge seeds. In the ground, dormant, waiting for the conditions to be just right. How long have those seed been there? When was the last time the conditions were just right? 10 years ago? 20 years? 50 years? Hundreds of years? Who knows. Just think of all those millions and billions and trillions of seeds of who-knows-what asleep in the soil. Nature. Whoa.