Carrots growing in the greenhouse, to be harvested in December or January!
This week's offerings: Next planting of sweet corn is coming right on schedule, so there should be enough for everyone that wants some! A variety of tomatoes available, including some roma tomatoes (see picture below). We started with harvesting leeks, so some of you will be able to get a pair of them. This might be the last week for the cantaloupes. We might have some watermelons still over the next couple weeks.
Coming soon: More cauliflower, cilantro, carrots
On the farm: Sometimes crops don't grow as intended, like in the case of our last planting of basil, where a whole lot of Japanese beetles moved in to chow on the basil leaves. We had seen damage from Japanese beetles at the vegetable farm in Missouri where we apprenticed some 35 years ago, but have rarely even seen them here in Wisconsin till last year. Now this year they have moved in and taken up residence here. Other gardeners I have talked to have also seen a lot of them, and they have damaged a variety of different vegetable crops. Is it getting warmer up here in Wisconsin so that we will see them more in the future? Seems possible. In the meantime, we will need to do some trials to see what we can do to minimize the damage they can cause!
As we do lose some crops occasionally to pests (or diseases), we have to continually be on the lookout for new challenges like this one, to go along with the old ones! Once we start thinking that we have things under control, something new is there to throw a wrench in our plans! As long as most of what we grow does well, we don't mind the occasional loss, but it's disappointing nonetheless!
Fortunately, we can still harvest some other plantings of basil! But only another week or two!
Have a good week!
Peter & Bernadette
Sorry for the delay in the e-mail! Racing to get the last of the onions (and shallots) in before the rain, and needing to make sure the counts of everything (some 32 things) are accurate before we send this out!
