Summer Happenings Around the Farm

New Staff

2019 has brought a lot of change in the staff at the farm. We have had two farmers leave to take on new projects. Natalie is now focusing full-time on her thriving floral design business, Springwell Design (she’s still around some as she occasionally purchases blooms from us), and Emma has moved to Colorado to get her masters degree in Sustainable Agriculture. Burkett Farm was a catalyst for these next adventures, and we couldn’t be more grateful for the time they spent here on the farm. Julie is currently interning at Sarah P Duke Gardens and will return to the farm later this month.

Katie

Katie joined us in May, and was promptly greeted by Dora. Katie was an animal science major at NCSU, and has horticulture experience. She’s been a great addition to the farm.

Mariana

Mariana’s story is what you could only hope for on a farm. She started off as a volunteer last fall,  joining us weekly. She even stayed around during our brutal winter all while having a smile on her face. When we put out a call for a new farm tech, she applied, and now she’s an employee!

Amanda

Amanda, an animal science student at the University of Mount Olive, chose us for her summer internship. She has been an excellent addition to the team this summer, and we will be so sad to see her go back to school next month.  

What’s Growing

Melons

The melons are stealing the show this summer! We planted 350 row feet of cantaloupe (3 varieties) and watermelon (5 varieties), and so far that space has yielded over 2,500 lbs. of deliciousness. We’ve found that later successions of melons tend to go down fast from pests and disease, so we’re sticking to one planting. (We seeded in the first two weeks of May.)

Tomatoes

We’re testing 25 varieties of tomatoes, both open pollinated and hybrid. The tomato pest pressure is heavy this year. We’ve sprayed for the major guys: stink bugs and tomato fruit worms. We chose insecticidal soap for the stink bug eggs and larvae, and bacillus thuringiensis (BT) for the caterpillars.

We support our tomato plants with a trellis made of 16-foot-long cattle panels, t-posts and zip ties. Trellising and pruning these fast growing plants is a weekly task. We use a lot of sisal twine this time of year

In the meantime, we’re having fun keeping anecdotal notes on the flavors, textures and yields of the different varieties. Look for our “tomato talk” on instagram.

Peppers

Our hot peppers are thriving but we’re trying to curb the anthracnose that crept into our sweet peppers seemingly overnight. We’ll report back on the efficacy of a one-two hit of Greencure (potassium bicarbonate) and Serenade (active ingredient: Bacillus subtilis, a bacterium) foliar sprays.

We’re growing one of our hot peppers, a variety called Mad Hatter, specially for Union Special Bread.

 Additional Moments

We’ve had a lot of fun times on the farm with volunteers this summer, and have grown some really beautiful flowers for our pollinators and our florist partners. Enjoy some photos

We’ve started seeding for fall and can’t wait to share that with you soon!