9/11 and 9/16!

9/11

Hello everyone! We are excited to share that we are now into our second week on the farm, and began planting last week. The first row we worked on is our "Three Sisters" system involving corn, squash, and beans. We began by spacing and planting our corn transplants, followed by direct seeding beans and squash along a repeated pattern.

The traditional intercropping technique "Three Sisters" plants these three crops close together to support each other's growth. As shown in the photo above, we designed our layout with corn planted in a zigzag pattern, strategically positioned beans between the corn stalks to climb up them, and squash planted in the middle to provide shade for the beans.

9/16

This week our focus shifted to planting strawberry and tomato transplants, as well as direct seeding beets and carrots. We started the day by planting root crops on our second row. Here, Nick and Shoshana weeded the soil and then used the Jang Push Seeder to lay down the beet and carrot seeds. After this, we went into the greenhouse and prepared trays of basil and cauliflower to transplant soon.

Next, we finished up about half of our plastic mulch bed with year-old strawberry transplants provided by Dr. Zhao. Before settling them under the cover, we lightly trimmed the roots and older leaves. Strawberries on the left are of the Albion variety, while those on the right are the Sensation variety. Albion is Californian, hardy, and less bushy. Sensation is sweeter and from Florida.

We finished up the day with planting our tomato transplants on the trellised row, and clearing our "Three Sisters" row full of weeds. The photo above showcases our progress so far. Next, we plan to interplant basil and marigolds around the tomatoes for pest control.

https://youtu.be/Cdve27K8gEE

Here’s our first timelapse! In this clip, you’ll see our sun-glow tomatoes and Suyo long cucumbers sprouting. If you look to the right in the second row, you’ll also spot our strawberry plants coming up. Later in the video, we put down some hay mulch to help control the weeds, which were a recurring challenge for us. Thankfully, laying down hay isn’t too difficult!

We look forward to sharing more updates as we continue to cultivate our garden!


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