March 17th, 2021

Our tomatoes are beginning to grow up the trellis, set blooms, and we’ve even spotted the first fruits! Tomato flowers are self-pollinating which means they contain both male and female parts. While the flowers are capable of self-pollination, factors like wind and insects can help the process along. Now that we’re starting to see the first fruits, we’ll be eagerly watching their progress as they swell and eventually mature. The first to mature (and thus be harvested) will be our smaller varieties like Sun Gold (an orange cherry tomato) and Candyland Red (a red currant tomato).

In addition to our tomatoes, our snap peas are beginning to flower. Snap peas have a very short window of time between blooming and harvesting. Typically the pods will be ready for harvesting within five to seven days after the flower blooms. Once the plants hit their stride and begin to bloom regularly, we’ll be harvesting almost every other day to keep up. Like snow peas, the entire pod of the snap pea is edible and can be enjoyed raw or cooked. It’s possible we’ll have the first harvest as early as next weekend so we will make sure to keep you posted!

Spring planting continued this week with cucumbers, peppers, and eggplant. We decided to interplant our Rosa Bianca eggplant with marigolds in a continuing effort to incorporate more flowers on the farm and maximize the use of our growing space. As for the rest of our crops, we’ll have a couple of different vegetables coming into season this week and next, namely our rainbow chard that has recovered beautifully from the freeze and baby arugula.

If you’re out and about and want to support restaurants that are using our produce, we delivered iceberg lettuce to Chef Justin Yu at Better Luck Tomorrow and frisée and beets to Chef Kaitlin Steets of Littlefoot, a pop-up concept with a French tasting menu.

March 3rd, 2021

Spring preparation is in full swing on the farm. Our snap peas have been swiftly growing since the freeze so we added a trellis system for them this week. Snap peas have a vining habit so they do best with a support structure like a trellis. As the snap peas grow, they begin to produce specialized leaves called tendrils. These tendrils are able to coil once they come into contact with a solid object like the netting on our trellis. If you look at the photo above, you’ll be able to see the first tendrils already beginning to wrap around the trellis! Training our peas to grow up the trellis will help to prevent disease from lack of air circulation and it will make it much easier when it comes time to harvest.

Tomato transplanting continued this week and like our peas, we’re incorporating a trellis system to provide support as they grow. We’re aiming to be more intentional with our growing space this year so we’ll be regularly pruning our tomatoes in order to allow us the room to interplant low growing vegetables in the beds with them. As the tomatoes grow, they will create shade that crops like lettuce and carrots will benefit from as the temperatures begin to rise. This allows us the ability to maximize our growing space while also increasing our crop diversity.

We’ve been focused on planting several quicker growing crops since the freeze in order to make up for our losses. In the field we’ve planted crops like spinach, arugula, and Hakurei turnips. In the greenhouse, we’ve been experimenting with sunflower and cress microgreens. Microgreens are young vegetable greens that are harvested when they are between one and three inches tall. They have a much more concentrated flavor than their mature counterparts and are often denser in nutrient content. We’ll have our sunflower microgreens available at the farm stand this Saturday for you to try! Sunflower microgreens can be used in salads or sandwiches and as a garnish for tacos or soups.