JULY:Pest Management, Farm Hacks & Friendly Fungi
Week of 07.01
The fava beans went from having a severe aphid infestation across the entire row in early June to being completely covered in dead aphids when I checked on July 1st. The aphids had all been parasitized by a fungus (Beauvaria bassiana) that was applied as a foliar spray three times over the course of the month. It ultimately took care of one of the worst aphid infestations I’ve seen in person, slowly but surely.
Potatoes are starting to size up. Our potato patch is looking pretty solid this year, besides the usual potato beetle pressure. I've started going through each row with a five gallon bucket and shaking the foliage of each infested plant against the insides of the bucket, and have found that it's an effective way to gather a massive amount of the larvae to kill at once. By no means a be-all-end-all, but it’s a good way to knock them back a little bit.
—Theo, Farm Crew
Week of 07.04
The tomatoes at Reeves are looking really healthy for the most part, but towards the back half of the field the health declines. According to Scott that back section was mistreated in the past, and was tilled far too deep down, fully inverting and compacting the soil at one point. Worth noting that when observing difference in vigor when approaching the end of that row. That will take a while to remediate, and will hopefully get better every year as we get more roots in the ground.
More diversity on the farm: we found an interesting entity known as Dog Vomit Slime Mold growing out of some wood chips. As described, it's a type of slime mold that definitely resembles a pile of dog vomit. It looks like a fungus in many ways, but slime molds are actually not part of the fungal kingdom, they are part of the protista kingdom. Very interesting to see it in the garden. Not quite sure where that thing's place is in the ecosystem, but I'm happy to see more diversity popping up.
—Theo, Farm Crew
Week of 07.11
For a market farmer, winter is a time—at least in theory—to recover from the long summer days spent in the field and tackle the list of to-do projects for next growing season. While the construction of three new greenhouses was the main focus, there were other smaller projects that have been paying off big dividends this season. By following Michael Kilpatrick’s tutorials, I converted two washing machines into green spinners. Last season we washed all our greens by a 5 gallon hand spinner, which no doubt took up the most time in the wash/pack area. With the added space of the greenhouses and 30 or so new beds, it was simple math to see that this would be a big bottleneck for the coming season. So far, the green spinners have allowed us to produce and wash more greens than last year while taking up far less time. Not only does it require less people to be in the wash/pack, it ensures a better quality product by spinning the greens much faster than we could by hand and allows us to get it into the Coolbot quicker. With a little demolition and wiring 101 it’s no wonder these converted green spinners are a staple in market farming.
—Seth, Farm Crew
Week of 07.18
For the first time since June the pest pressure has finally fallen below the economic threshold on the farm, generally speaking. The chard and eggplant beds in the greenhouse were the two most heavily populated areas for a while. The aphid population in both beds was way beyond the point of relying on native parasitoids. Two applications of Beauvaria bassiana (an entomopathogenic fungus) were made a week apart, followed by a release of green lacewing larvae a few days later. It took a couple weeks after that point, but now you would be hard-pressed to find a living aphid in those rows, and the lacewing larvae can still be found scouting the foliage of the eggplant, along with a whole slew of things like hover flies and other native wasps and parasitoids buzzing around, actively preventing another infestation.
—Theo, Farm Crew
Weed of 07.25
We’ve been getting back into the workflow of prepping beds – lots of beds are being flipped and prepped simultaneously, and I’m looking forward to seeing them fill up with fall crops.
While raking and weeding the beds I’ve been noticing a lot more fungal hyphae running through the top couple inches of soil than I ever have in that field over the past 3 years, along with more little things like centipedes, rove beetles and other predatory bugs/ nutrient cyclers. A good sign that our soil is slowly but surely advancing in ecological succession. Hopefully the weeds will begin to lose some of their vigor in the coming years.
—Theo, Farm Crew