Farm Update
This week really has been a treat with glorious, beautiful weather. The sky is bright blue and the clouds sculptural and perfect. Everything looks so green and healthy. We’ve been planting hot weather crops like peppers and tomatoes and trying to catch up with a bit of weeding.
Yesterday, we went through the eggplant, weeding and pinching all the Colorado Potato Beetle larvae that we encountered. These bugs are bad news. They decimate leaves of eggplant and potatoes, preventing the plant from properly photosynthesizing and growing. The bug is originally from the Rocky Mountains and feed on buffalo bur, a species of nightshade (the same family in which eggplant and potatoes are classified!). They’ve since migrated east and have found plenty of leaves to snack upon in vegetable farm fields.
Sweet potatoes are going in the ground, too! Baby sweet potatoes are called “slips” and look like little leafy green twigs. The slips are placed vertically into the ground and covered with a bit of soil. They always look worse-for-wear and anyone passing by might think, ‘How in the heck are these going to grow?’ but they always thrive with plenty of water and care.
Unlike tomatoes that do not like lots of water, sweet potatoes loveeee soil with a good bit of moisture. We take this into account when planning out the fields – one of our wettest fields on the farm is where the sweet potatoes are being planted.
Farmer Mike also just planted the winter squash crops! Isn’t that amazing that winter squash is planted at the beginning of the summer?
Enjoy the weekend.
The One Acre Farm Team
Recipes for Your Veggies
If you still have some Napa Cabbage in the fridge (we do!), try out these great recipes from our friends at Foodies Farms & Friends:
Here are some other recipes for your veggies:
