Once a seed is planted in the field there is a week or two of waiting until it germinates where we can’t do much other than water it to help it germinate.

After the seeds germinate we are able to pay more attention to the plants but while we wait for them to germinate it can seem like the more we check to see if they have popped out of the soil the longer it will take.

There are seven different veggies that we direct seed although carrots are the most important one for us as they are a favorite crop to grow and everyone loves eating them.

When we harvested the last of the spring planted carrots we already were getting asked when will we have carrots again and that is mostly up to the weather but we are aiming for late October. Then the plan is to have them all winter long and through the spring until it gets too hot next year at the end of June.

There is a delicate balance between planting veggies that prefer cooler temperatures too early and a heat wave comes soon after and waiting too long that there is less sun and heat so they grow much slower.

Every year the weather pattern makes some changes so we have to take our best educated guess at what we think will work. If we plant too early and a heat wave comes after that we are able to water the plants more than normal to keep them cooler and less stressed.

If we plant too late there really isn’t any way to fix that immediately unless we were growing in a caterpillar tunnel or a greenhouse where we could make it much warmer than the cooler outside temperatures.

Some of the effects on the farm from the big heatwave in July are visible now with the lack of tomatoes on the new plantings after all of the flowers fell off due to the heat.

That means there will be less heirloom tomatoes for the rest of the season with fewer tomatoes on the plant to ripen and any new ones that form now have a low chance of ripening before the season ends.

The cherry tomatoes are also slowing down but because they take less time to go from flowers to ripe fruit they recovering better and there is lots of green fruit on the Sungolds.

It is very interesting to compare every crop, but especially tomatoes, to last year and the differences that there are. Last year it was cooler in the spring and early summer which delayed the tomatoes and we had more later in the season but much fewer early on.

Some other crops that grow quickly like lettuce or radishes we can adjust how much we are growing moreso during the season.