Week 5 on the farm- The first harvest

First Harvest and the start of cold weather planting

Over the next few weeks, we started to see most of the plants that we planted in the first week flower and start to produce fruit. The main plants that we saw success in where the cucumbers and the squash. The plants grew extremely well and quickly and have started to produce fruit. 

                                                                                                 

We harvested the cucumbers when they

where more than 6 inch long and at least 1.5 inch

wide. This made sure that they were developed 

enough to potentially sell and enjoy. We did notice

that some of the cucumber plants at the bottom

started to attacked by a disease. We started to remove 

the bad leaves and parts of the plant to try to maintain

the overall health of the plant.

Our Bok Choy have started to grow to a point where we can start harvesting the outside leaves. 

We have started to notice much bug activity around them. We need to start a IPM practice soon to

stay on them because the pests seem to love the leaves.

As the weather started to cool down we planted an

 assortment of Collards, Kale and Broccoli in the

 plastic covered row. We wanted to wait till the 

weather was less harsh so they have a better chance of 

survival. Our hopes in planting them in the plastic 

covered bed was so that they could have better water retention.

The flowers that we have inter-cropped with our plants have started to grow and have developed some buds. We expect in the next week or so that they will go

to full bloom and be full of flowers. Hopefully the new flowers will bring in more 

pollinators to our farm.

The main thing that we will be working on will be weeding and looking for any pests. We added more hay around our crops as well as in the isles between the beds. So far that has helped greatly reduce the amount of weeds that have been showing up. The hay also helps again with water retention for the plants.

The peas that we planted have also sprouted and we have started to tie them up so they can crawl upwards.The more vertical growth that they get the more space hopefully for peas.