Corn Sprouting & Treating for Cucumber Beetles

Village Farm Team,

Our crops have been loving the sunshine and overall warmer temperatures this past week! The Natural Sweet corn we seeded last week is already starting to germinate, shooting bright green sprouts up through the soil. As for our other crops, we are starting to see some exciting growth. We spotted the first baby summer squashes last week. Our snap peas are flowering which means we’ll be harvesting the first peas in the next couple of weeks. And, some of our Indigo Rose tomatoes are only a week or two out from the first harvest! This tomato variety is both beautiful and delicious with a striking dark purple skin.

We harvested the last of our radishes and beets from our planter boxes in order to make way for some perennial herbs we’ve been growing in the greenhouse. Once each box was cleared, we added in a fresh layer of compost to make sure our new transplants have plenty of nutrients. Amending the soil in our boxes with compost also provides a looser soil structure which means more oxygen for our plants’ root systems. Over the coming week we’ll be planting our empty boxes with yarrow, anise hyssop, Greek oregano, and summer thyme.

Since we’re working on obtaining our organic certification, our approach to pest control must adhere to the regulations outlined by the National Organic Program. What that means is that our methods must be sustainable and chemical-free. We noticed this past week that cucumber beetles were attacking our cucurbits (squash, cucumbers, melons) so we put out yellow sticky traps by these crops. Cucumber beetles are attracted to the color yellow (the color of cucurbit blossoms) so the traps work to draw in and trap these pests, keeping them away from our crops. These traps will also attract other harmful pests like aphids and whiteflies.