Heat wave Plus a New Planting of Green Beans!!

It’s truly feeling like summer this week as a heat wave is hitting the farm and all of Northern California.

Yesterday it got to 105 degrees on the farm and its forecasted that it will stay in triple digits through Saturday. Taking care of the plants in the ground and making sure they get enough water is crucial this week, especially for the ones we transplanted last week that are still getting established.

Even more important than taking care of the crops during the heatwave is taking care of ourselves. We are making sure to do as many tasks as possible that are physically demanding and in direct sunlight in the morning and trying to work on tasks that can be done in the shade in the afternoon.

The first weeding of the fall crops we planted last week happened on Monday as we were starting to see some small weeds. Our goal is to be as proactive as possible with small and often weeding so that we don’t let lots of weeds get big which will take a lot of time to deal with.

We have two new planting of green beans that are starting to produce and we are happy to have lots of them for market. The plan was to space out the timing of when our plantings started producing but they both are ready now. We also have another planting that will be ready to start harvesting off of soon. All the plants look really good and are loaded with green beans so hopefully we will have a consistent amount for the next few weeks and into September.

Our main planting of tomatoes is starting to produce less but fortunately our third planting is picking up the slack. There are less varieties in it and no mixed cherry tomatoes but we are very pleased with what we have harvested so far.

The sweet potatoes are in the back corner of the farm and don’t need much attention right now as they are growing very well. When we planted the slips there were paths between the rows but they have grown so much that it is hard to tell where each row is.

Since the whole area is covered by the vines, there aren’t many weeds coming up and the soils holds the moisture in a little better so we can water them less often which is great in a drought. In a few weeks we will dig up a few plants to see how the sweet potatoes look and how far out they are from harvest.