Harvesting Squash & Planting More Summer Crops

Village Farm Team,

We’ve officially made the transition from winter crops as we’ve been able to harvest beans, peas, summer squash, and zucchini over the last week. Though we’ve spotted a couple of ripe Sun Gold tomatoes, we’re still a week or so out from having a true harvest. Now that our squashes are starting to reach harvesting size, we have to make sure to walk the rows every day in order to collect them while they are still young and tender. Harvesting also encourages the squash plants to set more fruit so that we can extend our harvesting window.

Our planting this past week focused on varieties that will thrive in the heat that is sure to come in the next few weeks. We direct-seeded Clemson Spineless and Burgundy okra varieties as well as Fairy Tale and Listada de Gandia eggplant varieties. We also seeded another succession of both Cocozelle and Dunja zucchini. Cocozelle zucchini is an heirloom with dark green flesh that has light green stripes running the length. If you’re curious about the taste, make sure to stop by and pick some up at the farmers market this coming weekend!

The yellow sticky traps we installed by our cucurbits have been working well in attracting and trapping pesky cucumber beetles. Now that they’ve been up for two weeks we’ll be replacing them as they tend to lose their stickiness (and thus effectiveness) over time. In addition to the sticky traps, we’ve also been using neem oil to treat for cucumber beetles. Neem will also discourage other soft-bodied insects like aphids, mites, and mealybugs. Another pest control method we’ve been employing is to spray our tomatoes with Bt to treat for worms and to continue using a foliar spray in order to keep our plants healthy and free of disease.