Produce, Pests, and Pumkins

This week we harvested more of the Genovese basil, which has been an excellent crop for us so far. I then cut them back pretty severely due to the poor quality of the majority of the plant. I then fertilized them with some Sustane fertilizer to perk the plants up some more. I am hoping that I can get a few more harvests before they run their course. The eggplants are still producing and I hope that I can get two more harvests on them as well. The peppers are still doing fine and still have some insect pest issues. We harvested all the white onions and they turned out wonderfully. They took a little long to grow. They are very common in terms of organic vegetables goes and the market in terms of dollars per crop are low. So I don’t think that I will grow them in terms of a crop but for pure enjoyment. The tropical pumpkins are growing nuts, climbing everywhere and starting to lighten in color to an orange tan from a dark green color. I have to look up when to harvest this plant as I have never grown it before. I have also planted our sweet potatoes for this year. I think the biggest pests we will be facing in the future are weeds. It is pretty amazing how well the weeds like to grow in a heavily nutritious ground. They really take advantage of bare, fertile soil. Next week I hope to prepare our new ground for the cover crop and till in the fall trial area for next years preparation. I need to do a better job of cover cropping when a crop is finished in order to stave off the weed pressure.