SPROUT Garden Update, Week of July 22nd

A bee pollinating a cantaloupe flower

Greetings! Last week the blog was left unattended, due to there not being anything particularly exciting to report.

Last week we (the gardeners, not the plants) suffered the intense heat wave. As expected, however, the plants didn't mind. Everything grew to some extent despite chronic dry soil and a constant need for watering. We've noticed a steady increase in the bee population in the garden, which is quite exciting. Pollination has been one of our long-term concerns.

Eggplant

The eggplant plants, which have been producing gorgeous flowers, have now begun growing eggplants, to our delight. Similarly, our hot peppers have begun growing pods, and our sole pumpkin plant has begun growing pumpkins. It is an exciting time for the SPROUT Garden—to finally see the fruits (quite literally) of our labor.

Today, for sale, we have beets, scallions, swiss chard, cherry tomatoes (our first harvest!), basil, broccoli, hot sauce, and pesto—homemade with organic pesto basil from the garden. If sales are sufficient today, we will breach $1,000 in earnings so far this summer. That is an achievement in itself.

Our collection of sale items for today

Until next time...

SPROUT Garden Update, week of July 8th

The sun shone bright this past week, which fueled up the many plants in the garden. Growth has been staggering. We've been forced to move some plants as a result.

Bell Pepper

Broccoli

Good news! The cucumbers and squashes are vibrant and rapidly expanding. There aren't any signs of disease or pests, either. We expect a massive fall harvest—thanks to the 90°+ weather and blue skies we've been having lately. In terms of current harvests, though, this week we're selling beets, scallions, red lettuce, basil, dill, and Mosshead's local hot sauce. Today we also sold long white radishes, however those went rather quickly. More of those on the horizon...

In other news, the hoop house (the steel-framed greenhouse in the garden) is set to be furnished with new hard plastic sides, which will better resist wind damage than the original plastic we had used before. This is in attempt to extend the growing season into the fall and winter, where we will be able to continue to output organic produce to the public. We have high hopes for late this year and early next year.

Mature Long White Radish... and Kristina!

Until next week...

SPROUT Garden Update, week of July 1st

Sweet Potato

Last week we had a fantastic harvest that included fresh dill and basil. We have high hopes for the future with these herbs—organic homemade pesto is on our agenda.

The weather has been improving (well, not for us particularly), and the plants have been thriving. Our cucumber seedlings have popped up and look happy as ever. The sweet potatoes and bush beans are similarly looking rather fantastic. As mentioned in last week's post, we aren't seeing many invasive pests, and so the plants are free to grow as nature intended them to.

In last week's article we talked briefly about what cold crops are—sadly to say we have had to part with another cold crop: snap peas. Yield from the pea plants was not as high as expected, unfortunately. Plus, they really don't like the heat. Nevertheless, the pea plants will be reborn in the fall, when we will most likely dedicate much more space to growing and harvesting.

Cherry Tomato

For sales this week we plan to have more herbs and lettuces. I know, not particularly 'diverse' from what we've been selling all of summer break thus far, but most of our crops are late bloomers. Our variety in sales is limited. But we expect massive sales to erupt come fall. We have, as such, begun planting our fall crops. Be prepared for August, September, and October, for those months will probably be the apex of our sales.

Again, we thank any and all support faculty and student at Conn have given us. Keep reading!