New this Week: Sweet Basil, Sunflower Shoots, and Leeks!
This Week at the Farm:
Is anyone else tired of this heat and humidity? Wow. What a stretch of difficult weather we are having with no end in sight! We had about 5 minutes of rain this week at the farm so we continue to irrigate. This week, we started resetting the farm for fall crops. The spring Brassica crops (such as broccoli and kale) have been mowed, rototilled, and cover cropped with a quick crop of buckwheat before we use those beds for fall lettuces, other leafy greens, and root crops planted toward the end of August. We also pulled all the pea trellis and prepped those areas for the last round of squashes and cucumbers. Unlike in most home gardens, commercial farms sow or plant many crops multiple times over the season to ensure continuous supply.
While saying goodbye to cool-weather spring crops is bittersweet, we know this weather will not provide the conditions they need to thrive. On the upside, the tomatoes are growing quickly now (with limited harvest so far), and the watermelons look beautiful! We also planted another round of chard, heat-tolerant lettuces, and fall carrots this week, as well as a new planting of perpetual spinach. Next week, we'll finish up the last squash, winter squash, and cucumber plantings of the season. It will also be a busy week in the greenhouse with new sowings of lettuces, beets, broccoli, cabbage, kales, collards, and more!
Crop Feature: Microgreens
This week, we are taking a minute to recognize one of our favorite crops - microgreens (aka micros)! These small leafy greens are the same plants as all of your favorite veggies, including kale, pac choi, arugula, broccoli, and peas. Actually, micros are the "newborn" version of these plants (they are only 5-14 days old!). There are many varieties of veggies, herbs, and flowers that can be grown as micros, and studies show that micros contain higher concentrations of phytochemicals and nutrients, like beta-carotene, than mature plants, making them the most nutritious veggie in your share each week!
Since it only takes a week or two to grow a crop of micros, you would think they would be easy and problem free! They are actually quite tricky, as Allie Logue (our microgreen Grower) will tell you! They are finicky, and require just the right conditions to grow into productive, problem-free crops. That's why we grow all of our micros in a controlled environment under lights, as seen here.
We also grow some "shoot" crops, such as pea and sunflower shoots. These plants are just slightly older and more developed than our micros, which we cut at the cotyledon stage (cotyledons are the first leaves that emerge from the seed). Pea and sunflower shoots require less controlled conditions, and are happy to grow inside our propagation greenhouse as seen below. We'll be offering sunflower shoots for the first time in your shares this week!
Enjoy, and have a great week!
If you have any questions, please reach out to jodi@cherryvalleyorganics.com or to support@harvie.farm at any time. Thank you for being a farm share member this season!
Jodi, Emily, Annie, Allie, Heather, Bo, Meghan, Nicole, Nicole, and Vanessa
The CVO Team
