Week 18, 2014

Our season is heading into spring and the warm season crops are starting to wind up.  Tomatoes are looking good this year.  I've got a few tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) resistant varieties as we determined from our UF research visit last season.  We are using Sakura, Charger, and Celebrity as our grape and round varieties.  We have seen less whiteflies but the spidermites are starting to become a problem.  I've been trying to start a new shoot from the base of our Celebrity once they reach their determinite height.  I just add soil and fertilizer and cover the old stem and get the new shoot to root.  It is like starting a whole new plant.  So far it is working well and I hope to start the plants a little shallower in the pot and then add soil as new stems are formed for new plants.
Lettuce has been spotty this year.  We lost a crop from worm compost and then our back up crop failed due to something wrong with a bag of soil.  We finally had to buy some from another organic grower just to get a crop in.  By this time we got our fourth crop from our seeds in the ground just in time for the return of upper 80 degree weather. We will see if we can harvest before they bolt.
Our strawberries are doing better than I imagined possible from organic, in the field planting.  Commercial growers will run water for 10 days straight sun up to sun down, to set the bare root plants in the field.  I planted the bare root plants into trays and ran intermittent mist for a week until they established roots, then planted them to the field.  We probably saved 98% or more of the water over a traditional planting method.  I also only sprayed the plants with a fungicide and insecticide one time each.  That is the most amazing part.  It has taken up until now for the taste to increase in the berries, but now they are tasting like real strawberries.  We will see how long they last.  I believe we will add them to the list for next year if we can come by the transplants.  This process has taken me three years to figure out.  First was pots in the shade house.  Next was pots in the greenhouse.  Finally, I figured I would just put them out with the rest of the crops and amazingly they did the best there.  This has encouraged me to try watermelons and an Asian melon that we had a little success with a few years back.  I can never get the melon plants to stay alive once they set fruit.  I hope this year is different.

Here are some pictures from the farm...

A new tomato growing from the base of the old plant

15 Sakura grape tomatoes on one stem!

Collards ready to pick

Shares for delivery

Nathan sneaking up on a hawk with a camera