Farm Update: Tomatoes, Greens, Squash and Beans

In the next two weeks, we’ll finally finish planting tomatoes. Yay! We will have somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 tomato plants this year and they’ll include big, beautiful red tomatoes, along with some delicious heirlooms.

We just purchased more lettuce seeds, so get those salad recipes ready. We’re planting lots of Italian salad blends, which have more radicchio than American blends, so your greens will have more bite. They’ll taste great with balsamic vinaigrettes or other dresses that balance the bite with sweetness.

The squash and beans are growing well. We’ll have plenty coming in a few weeks. In fact, we have 800 feet of beans that should be ready in two to three weeks.

We’ll also be planting sunflowers in the next few days, so soon we’ll have cut flowers for CSA Members and for sale at the markets.

We’ll also be planting okra soon. This nutritious green is easy to grow in Richmond’s hot climate.

This year we’re planting lots of melon seeds directly in the ground on a very well developed piece of land. Later in the season we’ll have Sugar Babies, which are like small, round, dark watermelons; Asian Watermelons, which are rounder, smoother and even more flavorful than Sugar Babies; and some other fun varieties for you to try.

We’ll also be planting about 100 hot pepper plants this year. Those of you from last year will remember that we planted a lot more hot peppers, about 1,200 plants, but this year we’re trying to diversify our crop a little more. There will still be plenty of hot peppers to spice up your summer, though. We’ll also have sweet peppers.