Florida Farms Blog

Weeks 7-8 Image 1:  This week, our largest obstacle was weed management. Although our cash crops seem to be growing very well, the weeds surrounding them also seem to be thriving. Thankfully, during our class on Monday, all five of our group members were able to successfully remove a lot of the weeds by hand-picking and tilling the area, as seen in the above photo. Specifically, we followed a strategy from Dr. Zhao and other leaders to weed as much as possible near the plants. Although we did not have time to weed the edges or in between the beds as much, we all agreed that it was more important to weed near our cash crops. Our team thought it was a great idea to allot our efforts to the cash crops, and we hope to see the benefits of our actions next week.  Image 2: We also had struggles with pest management; however, it does seem that this week the pest management is decreasing and the sunflowers are working as trap crops. During our field day this week, we were able to ident...

  We had a lot of progress this week as we were able to plant everything on our plot. We are really excited to watch our plants grow, and hopefully be able to harvest shortly after spring break! Image 1:  For our first image, we have an image of the low tunnel bed where we planted our watermelons and squash this week. Low tunnels are a great tool to protect warm season crops, such as watermelons and squash, by trapping the heat and creating a warmer climate around the crops. In addition, another benefit of the low tunnel that we think will be helpful is its ability to minimize the effects of any wind, pest, and rain. We are hopeful that the low tunnel along with the upcoming warmer temperatures will allow the watermelons and squash to prosper. Images 2:  This week, we also were able to plant our potatoes which our group is particularly excited about. After running into problems with our spacing, we creatively came up with the idea to intercrop our marigolds, cabbage, and ...