Post Harvest to CSA Basket

Frost damage on tomatoes

After coming back from Thanksgiving break, we saw that many of our crops took a heavy beating from the frost. Our tomatoes and beans had frozen leaves, but we were able to salvage much of the fruits. On the other hand, our carrots and greens seemed to be thriving in the cooler weather.

Three cultivars of carrots,
some have split tips or
stubby growth

 As the semester draws to a close, we began harvesting. We chose to pull up the carrots with tops showing or that were beginning to crack the soil around them. Though they were the expected diameter, some of our carrots show short and stubby growth. This issue may be due to the heat early in the growing season, or perhaps the soil become compact and restricting vertical growth.
 Some of our tomatoes, though mature, were not quite ripe. To ripen them for eating and our CSA basket, I placed them in a paper sack with a banana peel. The ethylene gas released by the peel helped to soften them up and give them a nice red color, much as it would in commercial scale post harvest handling of tomatoes.
Removing field heat like we learned about in class proved a bit more difficult. I placed our Asian greens and carrots in my fridge but that caused them to wilt. I had to re-hydrate them by placing them upright in a bowl of ice water. I do not know if this will effect their texture or flavor quality, but I need to learn more about post harvest handling before I go into growing for consumers other than myself.
Though I don't think our group expected just how much work would go into growing these crops, I think we all learned a lot and we are very proud of the end result.

Garlic Filet Beans

 I picked a couple handfuls of long slender beans and washed and snapped them. After sauteing coarsely chopped garlic in a couple tablespoons of olive oil, I added the beans and stir-fried for a few minutes. Then, I added a cup or so of water, not quite enough to cover the beans and a good pinch of salt and let them simmer about 20 minutes. After draining the remaining water, they were served hot. These beans have a delicate crunch, are full of juicy beans and make a colorful addition to any meal. The purple velor beans mostly stayed a vibrant purple, with little green mottling. The yellow were crisp and mild, an excellent accompaniment to the crunchy, flavorful green beans.

"Stakes" are High

As winter approaches, the weather has become less desirable and added more management to our garden plot. The rain has kept us from getting out there as often but also been damaging our plants. When the rain splashes sand up on the developing fruits it causes abrasions. The moisture also can lead to disease, but thankfully we haven't seen any of that yet.

Recent wind and rain also caused a lot of damage. Many bean plants were found laying on the ground. Though stood them back upright, all of the beans that were touching the ground got some kind of insect damage to them. Our tomatoes however were hit the worst. The cages we used at the beginning of the season were too small for our indeterminate varieties and did not provide enough support. Several of the plants were found fallen over as well. We used stakes and bamboo poles to give them the support we should have given them all along. Some of the plants that didn't fall still had bending limbs so we added support for them too. Hopefully we fixed them all in time prevent permanent damage.

Fallen tomato plants.

Abrasions and damage from the plant falling. Also split fruit.

Fallen/damaged beans and beans with insect damage.

Properly staked tomato plants.

First Fruits

Bell Pepper

New Tomatoes

First Harvest

Bush Beans

It has been about six weeks since we planted the first of our vegetables and we are seeing fruit! We even had a small harvest of green beans. In addition, we will plan to harvest two peppers this upcoming week. Even though they could get bigger, we are hoping that by taking them off now, the others will get larger faster. Our green beans are also doing quite well. We are trying to focus on quality. We want them at a long, and uniform size, but we also want to make sure that they do not get over mature and tough.

Insects

       We have come into several problems with insects on our crops. Our squash plants are being eaten by something. We have looked all over for caterpillars or some other kind of pest, but have not been able to find the culprit. Sadly, one of the six squash we planted died entirely. Another lost its blossoms. Mary and I have tried to do some research on the damage, but it's rather generic and we have had no luck figuring out what kind of insect is doing the damage. We are going to treat our plants with a general pesticide in hopes of saving the remainder.

       We are having similar problems with our carrots. Carrots have a slow germination rate. In addition, we had a relatively low success with germination and we did not have a very high percentage. In addition, a few of them have dropped their tops. They seem to be healthy until the tops just break off. Once again, it is hard to figure out what actually is causing the damage. Several things have the ability to do that, including soil pests and poor drainage. Our soil is well draining and with good nutrition the carrots should be able to withstand a marginal amount of pest damage.
 
    Another pest that is present throughout our entire garden plot is fire ants. They are not only causing damage to the foliage and roots, but they make it very unpleasant to work in the garden. We spread corn grits near the ant hills as an organic way to manage them. Already we have seen a decrease in the ant population.
 The last insect we have found present in our garden is actually beneficial. There are many different species of bees present in the garden. They have been actively pollinating our beans and tomatoes giving us a good crop yield so far. This picture however shows bees pollinating weed flowers in our plot. We are still have our work cut out for us maintaining the weeds.

Lots of crops, lots of weeds...

 With recent exams, our team has been unable to assemble at the garden at the same time so weed control has been slow going. We did not put down enough hay initially to sufficiently stifle weed growth so we’ve had to spend more time manually weeding. Additionally, after adding fertilizer most of our crops are doing well, but of course, so are the weeds.
There is a variety of weeds right now, most of which are in bloom. We’ve been contending with the sharp blades of nutsedge, small and prolific florida pusley and radiating spurge. Wild radish grows very large with long irregular, deeply lobed leaves and tall, plain flowers. Horse-nettle is not very obvious until you carelessly grab its spiny stem… Ouch! And then there’s oxalis which has pretty purple flowers and a mound of bulbous roots which are difficult to get completely out.
We’re getting pods on the first planting of beans. The newest planting of beans don’t seem to be growing as vigorously as the first, possibly because of the recent colder weather. Our carrots are growing steadily despite the competition with the surrounding weeds. The tomatoes, eggplant and pepper are doing well, we even have some small green tomatoes and one large pepper already. The squash is having an issue with some kind of pest. One leaf has been completely chewed away. While no caterpillar could be found, I did see some butterflies around… Also, the tiny black ants are a serious pain and care must be taken to leave the area for a while if a nest is disturbed. 

CSA Update

Carrots beginning to emerge

In addition to your usual weed suppression and watering, Thursday, the majority of our team met to plant more seed! All of our crops are coming up nicely (Though the carrots are quite slow) so it was time to add more. We are experimenting with succession planting, or planting a single crop at intervals to create a continuous harvest. We planted our first round several weeks ago when it was very hot. Now that it is a bit cooler we have planted another round. Not only will we have a longer time to harvest, but we can also see if the change in temperature affects the germination rate or vegetable quality.

We are also experimenting with intercropping, or planting two different crops in close proximity to maximize yield. Because our plot is fairly small, we planted rows of carrots between our tomato plants. We still considered spacing though so that the tomato roots would not affect growth. We also mixed cultivars among our crop species. 

We also checked on our transplants and seeded the rest of our tray. However, it is obvious by the yellowing leaves that we need to start a fertilizing plan. When they look a little better and have another pair of true leaves we intend to move them to the field.

Newly planted carrots between tomato plants