The Organic CSA Vegetable Field

The Organic CSA Vegetable Field
A picture of Plant City's (eastern Hillsborough County) first organic CSA farm

Friday, October 23, 2009

The Season Begins


Well another season has started. We are already underway with most of the first vegetables planted. We have about 25 different types of vegetables and the majority of them are doing well. We do have a problem with grasshoppers flying in taking a bite and then leaving. This would not be such a problem with larger plants but with seedlings that is a big setback. We have also been finding a few hungry caterpillars that are biting some of the brassica plants (cabbage, brussel spouts, broccoli). But all in all things are looking well. We should start harvesting in mid to late November. The weather has not been very cooperative with record high temperatures and then record lows a few days later. The plants are a little confused. As fun as shattering record temperatures might be, plants hate it. A nice average temperature with little bouncing around and a few gentle rains each week would be perfect. But perfect weather is seldom seen and that is the risk in farming.
Our community of supporters has signed up with us and we are very thankful. We are also as excited to see our harvest as they are.
To update you further on the farms activities, we are backing off of the ornamental nursery plants due to the slowdown of the entire industry. The Dixie Chicks are looking very big but have not started laying eggs yet. We keep checking everyday but nothing yet. We have built two half acre areas for goats. The posts are in but there is no fence yet. We are concentrating on planting the majority of the old citrus grove(that we pushed this last few months) with pine trees. This has rescued our greenbelt tax relief from the county. If we hadn’t done that it would be a $5000.00 hit to our tax bill. So for now the plan is to plant longleaf pines and revisit it in the future.
That is our current farm status, we will see how things play out this season.