Hot One!

Temperatures this week have topped 90. That makes for some difficult days on the farm. It’s no fun pulling onions and carrying them to the truck with sweat is in your eyes. The plants, however, love it! Actually some plants prefer it hot.

This week we got some pumpkin seeds in the ground for this fall! We usually don’t do pumpkin patches, but this year I wanted to give it a try and see what happens. Pumpkins love this weather. It is actually recommended to plant pumpkins when the soil temperature is around 90 degrees! They are definitely not a cold weather crop. So as it turns out, this was the perfect week to get some pumpkin seeds in the ground.

The big news for the week: our okra has started producing! We started picking on Tuesday and the plants just won’t stop. Okra is the kind of plant that once it starts producing it won’t stop. It’s hard to keep up with but sure makes some tasty food.

Onions are still keeping us plenty busy. There are lots in the field, lots drying on pallets and lots bagged waiting to find a good home. Be sure to come get some! Since we have so many we were able to knock the prices down a little bit, 50 cents per pound right now! Hurry in, this won’t last long!

I also decided to do a little experiment in the greenhouse. As some of you may know we sell some plants at our store as well. Usually some peppers, tomatoes, and squash, that sort of thing. The cucumbers and squash in the greenhouse had finished and been taken out so I had a lot of open rows for crops. The problem is the greenhouse can regularly hit 110 degrees in the summer, even with the sides rolled up for some air flow. Whatever I put in there had to be able to withstand the heat, so I decided to fight fire with fire! I used up some of the hot banana peppers and habaneros that were leftover from the store and put them in the greenhouse.

Quick horticulture lesson for you: if you plant hot peppers and sweet peppers too close together they will cross pollinate and your sweet peppers won’t end up tasting so sweet. Instead they will be sending you to your water or milk glass in a hurry! I personally enjoy some heat to my peppers occasionally so I thought the greenhouse would be a perfect place to try a little experiment. I planted some green and purple bell peppers in the row right next to the hot peppers. If all works out the way I have it in my head (fingers crossed) we might have just a few hot bell peppers this year! I can’t wait to put them on some pizza…

Get to know your farm!