Broccoli Crowning and Carrots Germinating
October 21st, 2021
Guess what? We spotted the first crowns forming on our Monty broccoli! So far, we’ve been really impressed with this heat-tolerant variety, especially since we’ve had more warm than cool days lately. Did you know that the crowns (heads) of broccoli are made up of clusters of unopened flower buds? If we were to allow broccoli to go through its life cycle without harvesting it, those tiny green buds would eventually bloom into small yellow flowers. We expect to be able to start harvesting our broccoli in 2 to 3 weeks.
Our first succession of carrots has popped up after much anticipation. In our experience, carrots take much longer to germinate (sprout) than most other crops. This round took about 2 weeks which seems quite long when you compare it to crops like arugula and radishes that can germinate in as little as 3 days. This round of carrots is the Bolero variety and it produces medium-sized orange carrots with slightly tapered, blunt ends. These sweet root veggies will need about 2 more months of growing time before they’re ready for us to harvest.
The tomatoes in the high tunnel are covered in fruit! We’re using a different trellising system with the high tunnel tomatoes than we do out in the field. These tomatoes are being supported with the hanging string method which you can see in the photo below. Reels of string are suspended above each tomato plant and the end of the string is clipped to the base of the plant. As the plants grow, the string is gently twisted around the main stem to keep them supported. This method requires much more vigorous pruning and works well in a high tunnel setting.
