In the past week, I believe the crew has removed over 50 hornworm caterpillars from our tomato plants. I'm not really sure, thankfully the days they do greenhouse work are my Market and Delivery days, so I've been mostly spared from the task. Hornworms are the early life stage of a Hawk Moth, and we've only had a few here and there in past years. We recently realized that this is a product of not shutting our greenhouses at night this summer (due to the extended heat). Night is when the moths are active and looking for places to lay eggs. Since we generally shut our greenhouses most of the summer because of our cool desert nights, we don't usually have this issue, but with the prolonged 55 degree nights, we've not seen a need to put the extra work in to close them all up at night. It's been a nice break from one of many farm chores, and searching out the hornworms is probably still less time consuming... they are quite gross though.
Hornworms are named because of a large protrusion, or horn on their back end, which is actually harmless. They are enormous and thus easy to spot, and the best control is to simply remove them, and try to stomp them or throw them in a soapy bucket before they vomit green goop at you... ? What a weird defense mechanism. It's important to be vigilant here, because as they get larger, they can eat the leaves of a whole tomato plant quite quickly if you're not careful. This would badly affect the growth and ripening of the many remaining tomatoes left on the plants.
Got to keep things interesting for a crew that's been harvesting nonstop... just a fun farm diversion.
Newly available this week is red cabbage (so beautiful, and again small, no need to worry), and rainbow carrots for a little flair! We've also got the first of our yellow onions (fresh) and the first of our cured garlic! So fun to see more storage foods coming out of the field, we hope you enjoy them! We also have some extra basil available this week, for anyone looking to make pesto. Get two big basil bunches for $5 (save $1!), or 4 for $10 (save $2!), or however much you need. This is the season that basil produces the best and has the best flavor (it loves the heat). Pesto freezes great for winter in jars or ice cube trays. We'll make this available as much as we can in the next few weeks, so if you don't get any this week, or you're not quite ready for the project, check back next week.
Your farmers,
Ashley, Caleb and the Sungrounded Crew
