CSA Farm

The Wait is Over

Our weather has now moderated just enough to get our fall gardens planted. Our daily highs are now in the mid-90s and our lows are often in the 50s and 60s. This is perfect for tomatoes, peppers and the warm weather crops, but it is still a bit hot for cool weather plants like pac choi, collards and broccoli. Nonetheless, I planted both cool weather and warm weather transplants in the market garden last week. I also direct seeded some green beans, cucumbers and summer squash in this garden area all of which have sprouted and are growing well.

We have Peacevine cherry, green zebra, celebrity and big beef tomatoes with a few Traviata eggplants sprinkled in planted in the northern market garden beds. These plants are looking very good but won’t produce fruit for a while yet.

The pac choi is not real happy with the hot days we are having, but the shade cloth is providing enough protection to keep them going until it gets cooler.

We have installed hoop structures over all the beds in the market gardens so we can cover the beds with whatever protection is needed; shade, wind, thermal, or they can be easily removed when the weather is nice.

The herbs, collards, broccoli and chard transplants are more than holding their own. The only transplants that didn’t make the transition to the gardens were the lettuce. Just too hot for lettuce yet.

The winter squash and pumpkins are doing great under with shade cover. I planted delicata, honey bear, carnival and butternut squash and baby pam pie pumpkins and cider jack carving pumpkins. These plants are blooming prolifically and are setting fruit already.

We have our first planting bed installed in the one west growing area. The caterpillar tunnel is very stable, even in a strong wind, and provides welcome shade in a very sunny area. As of today, I have planted transplants (tomatoes, onions and leeks) and seeds (potatoes, radishes, carrots, beets, parsnips, snow peas and snap peas in this bed so far. By the end of the week I will complete the planting in this bed with turnips, chinese cabbage, lettuce, kale, garlic and tat soi.

In our third planting area, the herb garden, we have sweet potatoes, shelling peas, yukon gold, sangre, and cannela russet potatoes and asparagus. I still have a couple of beds to dig and revitalize in this area which will be filled with herbs in a few weeks. Meanwhile, Ron is building out the vegetable cleaning and preparation area in the greenhouse and in his spare time he is building the next raised bed in the one west area.

Clearly the wait for fall is over and it’s full steam ahead for the fall growing season. Let the growing begin!

© 2011 Lost Valley Gardens.