Farm Happenings at Meadowlark Community Farm
Back to Farm Happenings at Meadowlark Community Farm

Summer Share: Week 13

Posted on August 23rd, 2019 by Lauren and Craig Kreutzer

This week, we completed one of our last field plantings for the year. Head lettuce and kohlrabi were transplanted, and we direct seeded spinach and salad mix. We'll be seeding cover crops today and are planning our fall plantings in the hoophouse. Potato harvest will be here soon! We are still baffled by this comfortably cool weather we've been having. Brassicas (like the beautiful napa and mini cabbage that we harvested this week) are thoroughly enjoying the cool temperatures. 

The conditions that many crops are loving are a challenge to the warm season crops, like peppers and tomatoes. The peppers are taking their time ripening, but the first sweet peppers (a beautiful red Italian pepper called Carmen) are in this week's share offerings.

We have some bad news about our tomato crop. Yesterday, we went to pick tomatoes and discovered late blight in our crop. Late blight is caused by oomycetes, which are fungus-like organisms also called water molds. The spores are spread via the wind, and sadly they found on our tomatoes. Today, we will be removing all of the plants and burning them - to hopefully help decrease the spread of late blight for other area farmers and to prevent an infestation next year. We harvested the blushing fruits and plan to have tomatoes for the next 2 weeks, but that will be the end of tomato season for us. So sad! At least we've had a few week's of tomatoes, but we had hoped to have them for many more. Enjoy them while they last!!

Your Farmers,
Craig & Lauren