Week 11: Our final week, hits and misses (12/02)
This week is our final week of classes, so we went ahead and went out to the plot and did our final harvests and assessment of all of our crops, management methods, and experimental objectives. Here is how all of our crops performed.
Cucumbers:
Our cucumbers were arguably our biggest success! While we did have to replace some plants earlier on in the semester due to them being forced out by weed competition, the overall success of our cucumbers showed in our harvests. In the beginning of the semester when we noticed that they were not doing so well, we replaced the necessary plants, trellised them, hit them with fertilizer and extra water and they perked up immediately. From here on out, they were pretty smooth sailing.
(Our cold burned cucumbers)
Corn:
The corn was the easiest to manage once it was in the ground and we never really had to touch it once planted. The corn that we had planted after the rest of it did not do as well but we think it was not given enough time to grow and the plants around them were so large they out-competed them. One thing that we noticed in the plants was the corn becoming fully developed outside of the husk making it dry and inedible. After further research, it seems that this is caused by stress during pollination, most likely heat or drought.
(An ear of corn that developed outside of the husk)
Carrots:
These also grew with little to no intervention from us after planting. One of our experimental objectives this semester was to see whether or not the carrots grew better transplanted or direct seeded. Our direct seeded carrots did much better than the transplanted ones as they grew straighter and a little bit larger than the rest of them. We did notice that there were too many carrot plants in each hole which caused them to fight for space and not be able to grow as big, if we were to do this again we would focus on getting less seeds in each hole which is hard to do with how small they are.
Our inner row tomatoes ended up growing very large and beautiful; however, they never ripened and we pretty much completely lost our outer row of tomatoes due to weed pressure. We believe that they didn't ripen because once the tomatoes fruited, the temperature range was never in the optimal range of 68-77 degrees Fahrenheit that it need to be to complete these processes. The tomatoes that did ripen immediately rotted and feel to the floor which after research, seems to be due to a calcium deficiency. While we did not go home with any ripe tomatoes we were able to use them for fried green tomatoes and salsa verde.
(A calcium deficiency tomato)
Chinese Cabbage and Broccoli:
Our Chinese cabbage and broccoli both looked beautiful at the end of the semester except for a few spots where pest pressure created some holes in the leaves. While the cabbage was not given enough time to grow into full heads and the broccoli did not begin developing fruit by this week, we plan on coming back later this week to harvest what we can and have learned that you can also cook with the broccoli leaves!
(Our luscious, but not quite ready, Chinese cabbage)
Pumpkins and Bush Beans:
Our pumpkins grew rapidly with a lot of flowers but little to no fruit development. The couple of pumpkins that did grow did not grow as quickly as we thought they would and ended the semester as small, green pumpkins. After further research, it seems that this is a pollination problem. As far as the bush beans we inter cropped with the pumpkins, these were pretty much over taken by pumpkins and we were only able to get a few beans off of them. This week, they looked pretty bad as they had been killed by the cold we experienced over the last few weeks.
(Our VERY green pumpkins)
Snap/Snow Peas:
Due to the hurricanes, we did not have the optimal time to get trellises placed on the peas when they needed it. Even though these were not put up, we did still have a few peas pop up on the plants that we had left. Ultimately, the peas would have been a lot more successful had we been able to put up the trellises.
Banana Pepper and Jalapenos:
Ultimately, none of our jalapenos survived and only our banana peppers were successful. As far as the banana peppers went, we felt that they were not able to grow to their full size and potential. After doing some research, it seems as if this was also an issue that was caused by the cooler temperatures that we began experiencing later in the semester.
(A fully grown banana pepper, we got around 10 of these!)
Radishes and Spinach:
This area of the plot had a lot of issues as this was the one area that was not planted prior to the hurricanes coming in. While we removed most of the weed pressure prior to planting, the fertilizer that we put down upon planting seemed to have brought back most of the weeds we removed. These weed ultimately killed out the spinach; however, a few radishes survived and looked awesome!
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