If we don't go and look at the fields every day, the greens grow big when we aren't looking. Just today we saw that the seeds that went into the ground about three weeks ago have now turned into Wasabi mustard greens and purple radishes and pretty soon there will be flowers on the tops of the Chinese broccoli. Some of these grow so fast that we almost miss their best moment for picking. We definitely planted enough kale this time around.
On the other hand, the tomato plants are looking pretty black and droopy. Whenever we get a few spare moments, we go back to deconstructing the strings and clips that hold up the plants so we can clear the patch. It seems like just a few weeks ago that we were stringing up those beautiful leafy plants and now they have finished their job and are ready to call it quits.
We got the last load of butternut squash out of the field, so that milestone has been reached and passed. Now we are digging sweet potatoes--we planted 24 beds or 5000 linear feet or 10,400 plants in the first week of June. It is kind of a scary amount of sweet potatoes. We never feel like we have enough (they last through the winter) so we tried to plant plenty for everyone, but maybe we planted too many. The real issue is finding a space to store them all. They need to be kept in a place that stays dry and doesn't go below 50 degrees and isn't too hot. We have a small room that meets those criteria but it would not fit all the sweet potatoes that might be coming out of the ground! Everyone will have to eat a lot before winter.
