Thinking About Leafy Greens During The Heat Wave

The first heat wave of the summer is always tougher than most of the other ones for us and the plants. We are not adjusted to the hot temperatures as it was a cooler June than normal.

We had to water all the veggies a little bit more as they were needing more water with the hot weather.

Last Friday we had our final harvest until the fall of greens and lettuce which don’t like the heat so we had an earlier than usual start in the morning.

We will be in a new spot at the Saturday Davis Farmers Market beginning this Saturday, July 8. It will be under the structure on the north end right in front of the red playground. This will be our new permanent spot on Saturdays.

While we are focusing on starting the harvest for our summer veggies as they ripen up we also are thinking about the fall. We will start seeding some of the first fall veggies in less than two weeks.

Last November we made the crop plan for the spring and summer veggies this year and now we are wrapping up the crop plan for the fall and winter veggies.

Getting a head start to planning the fall veggies and getting them seeded is crucial so we can have a consistent supply of them for as long as possible.

Additionally there is less time in the fall to plant and direct seed before it gets too cold and everything grows very slow compared to the spring when we can plant in the ground from the end of January until June.

For some of the veggies we are starting them later or earlier and for others we are adding more or taking away some plantings.

After we get the crop plan finalized we will order all of the seeds we need to begin seeding very shortly.

The greenhouse is practically empty and we’ve got it mostly cleaned up to be prepared for all the trays of fall crops that will start appearing there soon.

The tomato plants are filled with so much green fruit and this heat wave helped them start ripening. Hopefully that means we have more tomatoes this week and it continues to increase.

Last year we had barely any eggplant in July and it looks like this year we will have some more as there are a good amount on the plants that are ready to hastiest and very small ones also.

We will also have our first okra at market today as we are almost done with all of our spring veggies and our stand is mostly filled with summer crops.