Five Peas on a Blog

Entering the 3rd week of our CSA project! These seedlings are ready to be transplanted! We’ll attempt to minimize transplant shock to make the transition from greenhouse to field less stressful for the plant by verifying maturity, carefully handling the plant (especially its roots), and watering adequately. This week, we’ll be transplanting the tomatoes, pumpkins, and cucumbers, as well as preparing our plot. Our plot previously consisted of beds that ran in only one direction, so we’ll have to change the direction of half the beds so we can get started on one of our management strategy objectives (are there differences in growth in horizontal vs. vertical beds?). We’re walking perpendicular to the beds we want to change the direction of (to create new indents) and filling in the previous indents to switch the orientation of the beds. Plant spacing is necessary to prevent overcrowding and competition for light and resources. Ensuring that there’s adequate space between the plants and t...

Second week of the CSA project! Checking on the plants from last week part 1! This tray contains carrot, banana pepper, and jalapeño seeds. The carrots have started germinating, but the peppers still haven’t emerged. We’ll be comparing direct-seeded and transplanted carrots in the plot, so we’ll have to transplant these carrots while simultaneously sowing carrot seeds in the field. Checking on the plants from last week part 2! This tray contains pumpkin, cucumber, and tomato seeds. Each of the plants show some degree of germination from the seeds, with the pumpkins being the most developed and the cucumbers and tomatoes following. We should be ready to transplant these into the plot next week. Here, us and the other groups are watering the plants. It's imperative to refresh the soil with water to ensure the plants are adequately hydrated at field capacity; if the plants drop to their permanent wilting point, they can’t recover from the effects of dehydration. These include cavitati...

First day starting the CSA project!  To start off the CSA project, we first divided up our 25 x 25 ft plot of land to figure out what crops we wanted to plant and where. We’ve placed the pumpkins on the northeast end to minimize shading and maximize sun exposure, and we’ve placed the trellised peas and cucumbers near the top as well to keep them together. We’re hoping the nitrogen fixation from the peas will benefit the adjacent crops. We’re also using the carrots as a buffer between the peppers and the two different Brassica plants (bok choy and Chinese cabbage). We’ve tried to minimize competition for light, water, and nutrients in our layout.      Here, we’re examining the seeds and learning about the best planting depths/numbers for them. The smaller seeds need to be placed closer to the soil surface (to sense that there’s adequate sunlight to sustain themselves with photosynthesis once they germinate). We’re also planting 1 seed per cell for larger seeds, and...

Before getting into our weekly entries, here are the objectives we're going to examine over the semester with our community supported agriculture (CSA) project: What changes are observed in direct-seeded vs. transplanted carrots (added to our plot at the same time) with regards to growth, development, yield, and other characteristics? Do the growth, development, yield, and other qualities of banana peppers and jalapeños change if they are planted together vs. planted in two separate beds? If so, how? How do the plants in the plot interact with each other? Specific examples: Does nitrogen fixation from snap and snow peas help the adjacent corn, pumpkins, and cucumbers? (inspired by the indigenous Three Sisters method of planting corn, beans, and squash together) Do certain plants inhibit each others' growth? (root competition for water and nutrients, leaf competition for light, etc.) How do the plants in the plot respond to various management strategies? Do horizontal vs. vertic...

Hello, we're the Five Peas! We're so excited to bring you updates on our community supported agriculture project this fall semester. We'll be posting content on everything from seeding to harvest on this blog, so stay tuned!  Left to right: Mark J., Amitha K., Sam P., Madeline C., Lindsey F.

 With week four came more exciting additions to out plot! We started with adding a trellis for our cucumber plants. This trellis will allow the cucumbers to crawl up the metal and begin to grow high off the ground. Eventually, when the plants begin to fruit, it will keep the cucumbers up off the soil!     We also spoke with Yosef who upon noticing we were missing some cucumbers on our plot gave us some "special cucumbers" that he had. We are so excited to see these cucumbers grow and how  they compare to the marketmore cucumbers we had already planted! This week we also planted our first section of snow and snap peas. We direct planted these without soaking them first and intend to soak and plant some more next week and compare how they grow. In addition to this we also added beans between the pumpkins we previously planted and got both our carrot transplants and direct seeded carrots in the plot! The peppers are in! We got our peppers planted and are so excited to s...