Harvesting more summer deliciousness
The temperatures are slowly climbing every day and at the same time the amount of summer veggies we are harvesting is increasing.
Every couple of days there is a new crop or new variety that we are beginning to pick while others are reaching their peak before the next succession takes over.
Still within a couple of weeks of the longest day of the year that is helping everything ripen in conjunction with the heat. Shortly when the heat spikes it will cause a lot of rapid ripening.
July and August are the two main harvests months for summer crops with it often feeling like all we do is harvest every day.
This year a number of the crops had some early challenges that slowed the harvest but they are bouncing back with every harvest having an increasing amount.
One crop that has been producing like crazy since the middle of June is the cherry tomatoes. The sungolds and sweet 100s have been consistent in the harvest amount thanks to the second succession of tomatoes that is coming in.
In just four weeks what varieties we have in the mixed pint of cherry tomatoes has changed a lot with now there being lots more colors and shapes.
Right now the yellow-skinned Blush, rosy stripped Queen Bee and purple-black Purple Bumblee are taking the spotlight.
All of the cherry tomato varieties we grow, it is 13 varieties this year, are indeterminant meaning they poduce over a long period of time but they definitely have a window of peak harvest. That is why we plant multiple successions and are trying out new varieties to see how they compare.
The summer crop we grow the most successions of is melons so that we can have a consistent as possible harvest throughout the season. Since the start of harvesting a few weeks ago we keep picking more each time.
We grow three different types of melons but within that there are a good number of varieties especially for the cantaloupes.
Some of the varieties are trials for the future and others are our favorites we’ve grown so far.
While we already a few weeks into harvesting melons, at the same time we are planting some of the final successions of the season.
Since the melons in each planting typically all ripen over a couple of weeks we need the next succession to start coming in when the previous one is starting to slow down.
It never works out perfectly but that is the aim.
On the farm all of our time and attention is on harvesting but in the office we are getting the crop plan finalized for the fall and the winter.
It is a busy time to be having to crop plan but if we did it over the winter we would have had to practically rip it up with the changes necessary for the fall adding another farmers market.
Additionally we may try to grow a few fall crops on the large piece of land we started leasing last year since we have much improved irrigation. Those veggies would have to be ready to harvest in October since the water for that property ends in mid-October.
Lots to figure out and there are always more irons in the fire that we are evaluating what will be the best for the farms short and long term sustainability.
