We recently crossed the half way point in Farm School, and are now into the third quarter of the program. Honestly, it feels like we’ve been doing this a lot longer, but it has really just been an exceptionally packed 5 months with 5 to go.
We are also in the middle of summer harvest time. That means tons of tomatoes, fruits, and competition. Everyone and their brother seems to be showing up with produce everywhere I go. Because of the overwhelming amount of produce competition, and because we are growing in a small space, my assigned farm group (Farm Fantastic) decided to grow things that were hard to grow for a unique market advantage.
Cucumbers and squash are some of the easiest things to grow right now because they are fast and fairly straight forward, but my team wanted a challenge. We chose the two hardest things to grow with the assumption that we would fail because everyone said they were not commercially viable here.
The first is melons. Growing a big delicious watermelon is a slow and tedious process. It is 100 days of constant vigilance and worry. From wondering if the seeds are going to sprout to a daily routine of putting the plants out to harden-off everyday. Then into the ground they go with the wonder and guessing of a new anxious farmer. There was the joy of harvesting a 19.8lb watermelon, and the disappointment of hearing people complain that it wasn’t sweet enough. And of course there was the frustration of having a 20lb watermelon stolen the day before I was going to harvest it.
When it came to tomatoes, a very difficult crop to commercially grow outside, we decided to experiment with dwarf plants. The lesson learned is they do produce a lot of tomatoes, but the tomatoes are smaller so the final volume is still a very small amount. I think one full-sized determinant cherry tomato plant could out-produce the entire bed of Orange Hat and Gormandize (30+ plants).
Growing Tomatillos has been an adventure unto itself because I realized I don’t really know much about a tomatillo. After educating myself a bit, I now realize my tomatillos may be small but they are definitely experiencing tremendous pest pressure. From leaf-legged bugs to shield bugs to Japanese beetles and caterpillars, it is a veritable cornucopia of of bug life on those plants. But, the plants are continuing to grow, and I think in the end we are going to get a fair amount of tomatillos.
Overall lessons learned: the plants are hardier than expected. Weed and pest pressures are insane. At the end of the process, it really comes down to the percentages; some plants are going to die and some produce will be grown regardless of how much worry you pour over your crops. I think experience gives a farmer a better understanding of the percentages and a true preference for which crops are worth the effort.
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