Week 6 (June 23- June 27)

Tasks:
-Walked the farm to get an eye for what work needs to be done
-Weeded grasses from large strawberry plot
-Trained pruned tomatoes **
-Researched Raspberry and peach illnesses
-Preserved Strawberries by freezing
-Continuing to mulch blueberries at the farm, and tilled between the rows
-pulled up Chinese cabbage
-cultivated raspberries, garlic, herb garden (garden)
-Sowed: radishes, beets, pole beans, green beans, carrots-
-Planted: another round of Summer squash, zucchini, and cucumbers,
-Continued to mulch strawberries at farm with more bales that we bought.
-Cutting alfalfa around perimeter and in open spaces
-Blocked: cucurbits and Asian greens
-Sprayed sulfur on garden trees
-Harvested broccoli for faculty on Tuesday.


Notes:
Tomatoes-This year we really planted the tomatoes way too close together, and we expect this will make harvesting them a bit difficult, however we are trying to be strict about pruning them back so we can move easily between rows. Currently, the tomatoes are planted in rows that are 18 inches apart with 18in between each plant, we’ve made two rows per a bed with a little over 3 feet between the plants for the walk path. However, the walk paths are actually only about a foot wide because of the size of the tomatoes. For next May we should consider wider walk paths between rows which are 18 inches apart (or back to back in cages) but with plants that are also spaced a bit farther apart, maybe two feet.

Peach Trees-Earlier this summer we noticed some sores on our peach tree trunks and branches that had gooey brown oozing out of them. They looked like what are called cankers. Professor Watson cut out one spot in one of the trees using the method suggested by the Rodale Encyclopedia, but we noticed after a few dry hot days, many of the sores had dried up. It could be that the fungal infection was heightened because of the very very wet June that we’ve had thus far.