2023 CSA Newsletter #4
Happy Fourth, folks! I hope you all had an enjoyable holiday weekend; however, you celebrate.
Last week was a great week for beneficials on the farm. You already read about me gushing over the praying mantid in the strawberries. Well. two more beneficials made their presence known and felt on the farm. While doing a brief farm walk, I came across ladybeetles, lady beetle larvae and pupae in the pepper hoophouse! Ladybeetles are voracious predators that take care of a wide range of pests. Aphids are a pest that can be a problem on peppers and ladybeetles LOVE aphids. It's so great to see that the ecological approach we take with our farming practices in action. The sides of the hoophouse that the peppers (and heirloom tomatoes, basil, eggplant, ginger) are in can roll-up/down. This allows for good ventilation plus access to native pollinators and other beneficial insects. The greenhouse on the other hand, does not have sides that raise or lower. There are vents on the end walls and a vent in the top. It is much more of a controlled environment. Beneficial insects can make their way in, but it is much more difficult. Because of this, we "bring in" beneficials to help combat some pest issues and help with pollination of the tomatoes. Most of the hot peppers are grown in pots on our benches in the greenhouse and aphids definitely become an issue throughout the season. Since we don't use any synthetic pesticides and only use "approved for organic use" pesticides as a last resort, this is a crucial strategy in IPM (integrated pest management) to deal with aphids and other pests. Ladybeetles arrived (in a plastic quart container) and are being released daily to "manage" the aphid population. The great thing about the adult ladybeetles is that they like to reproduce, in addition to munching on aphids. In about a week or so, we will introduce parasitic wasps to the greenhouse to help with the aphid population. I'll give an update when that happens.
A bumblebee hive also arrived last week for the greenhouse tomatoes. Tomatoes really benefit from the assistance of pollinators and since it's hard for pollinators from the outside to get in, the addition of a hive is extremely helpful. The tomatoes have really started to takeoff and the bees arrived at the right time to get to work. We're already starting to see the first fruit clusters and these workhorses are only going to speed things up. The tomatoes have only been in the ground for just about a month and it's amazing how they've taken off. We added a slow-release fertilizer to the plants last week to help them along this important next month of growth. In addition to the weekly "suckering and trellising", we also got some seeding for fall crops done.
This week's CSA share is going to have a "preview crop". I wanted to see how the garlic was doing since it had been a few weeks since we started harvesting the scapes. To get an idea, I needed to harvest a few heads from different areas in the bed. Since I started that, I decided to harvest enough for this week's share. So, there will be "fresh" or "green" garlic this week. You are more than welcome to use it now just as you would garlic that has been cured. The differences are that it will need to be refrigerated if you don't use it all at once and it hasn't reached its full flavor potential. It's stronger than the scapes but still has some time to go. You can also choose to dry it by hanging it. There will be more "fresh" garlic in the coming weeks, but it will be much smaller and from the planting I did last December. The garlic this week is a preview of what we will have in the fall after it has been harvested and cured. There will also be more lettuce mix, rainbow chard, salad turnips, carrots and scapes in the share. The strawberries are done for the season. They were a little disappointing this year, but I thought we could squeeze one more week out of them. The rain from the past few days put an end to that idea. But we're on to the next fruit of the season for us, black currants. They will be picked in the morning tomorrow, so I am not exactly sure of what their yield will be. If not tomorrow, they will be in next week's share.
Have a great week!
-Farmer Todd