The potatoes are springing into life
After sitting beneath the soil for over a month the leaves of the potatoes are emerging and growing very rapidly.
Thanks to the often rains we had in March combined with a few warm and sunny spells made the potatoes sprout quicker than they did last year and they are now much further along.
We gave the potatoes a big weeding before hilling them for the first time this week. By moving the soil from the pathways up against and on top of the plants it allows for there to be more space for the potatoes to grow underground.
It also helps prevent the potatoes from being exposed to sunlight which causes them to go bad.
Outside of hilling them on average every week and watering them we don’t have to do much for them. The hilling also takes cares of the weeds that are growing around the potatoes.
Last year we harvested the first potatoes in late May and this year it looks like it will be a few weeks earlier but of course that depends on the weather we get in the coming weeks.
It seems like every week there is a new veggie that we are starting harvest with the sunny and warmer weather. This week we will be harvesting the first turnips of 2024. These white turnips are delicious whether they are eaten raw, cooked or roasted. Over the next couple weeks they will increase in size.
We also have been harvesting tarragon and chives for the last week which are both great additions to many dishes.
Having sunny days in the 70s is really helping everything grow a little bit quicker and combined with the little bit of rain which the plants prefer over when we irrigate them.
It also has the weeds growing quickly which is a big focus so they don’t get out of hand before we get super busy that we are unable to deal with them and either have to mow in a crop or get less harvest from it.
That is leading us to weeding everything much more even when we barely can see any weeds above the soil.
After the upcoming weekend where the low is predicted to be 38 degrees Saturday morning we will have lots of planting to do.
A few crops were going to get planted this week but we pushed them back a week to avoid the chance of them getting affected by the cold weather in combination with transplant shock.
Minimizing stress early on is very important so that the plants are strong enough that the bugs are not able to devour them.
The main veggie we will be planting is eggplant which we are doing one main succession of this year instead of two. We also will be planting Genovese and Thai Basil next to the eggplant.
The first of two successions of peppers is almost ready to be planted and will be transplanted in the next two weeks. We are growing more Jimmy Nardellos and added a bell pepper variety that is touted to become ripe faster than most other ones.
Next week lots of direct seeded summer crops will be going into the ground joining the ones that are already there.Those will be more melons and green beans along with the first summer squash and watermelon.
Additionally we will be transplanting our first succession of cucumbers in the field. Most of what we are growing are the Striped Armenian cucumbers but we also have a slicing cucumber and Suyo Long.
Outside of lettuce and radishes all of our spring veggies are in the field growing and hopefully are ready to be harvested soon.
