Florida Farms Weeks 5-6

 


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 the potatoes. Since the potatoes have such deeper roots, we hope that they will grow well in this area. Potatoes were not part of our original plan, so we are excited to see how these turn out!

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Image 3:
We also planted our tomato plants along the trellis to help support their vertical growth and maximize the air flow. The tomato plants were grafted so we were sure to keep the graft union above the soil line to prevent there from being any problems or diseases. We hope that trellising the tomatoes will also reduce the risk of any pests, especially since we did recently see a large amount of ant beds near our trellis.



Image 4: 
Our sunflowers are growing well, and we hope that they will serve as a trap plant and deteer pests from our vegetable plants soon. We planted sunflowers along the ends of our beds as well as near the edges of some of our beds, as seen in this photo. Additionally, we planted some sunflowers on one side of the trellis. One obstacle that we are hoping to avoid though is if the sunflowers grow too tall on the trellis and have competition with our tomato plants. The sunflowers on the trellis are dwarf sunflowers so we hope this will not be an issue, but we do plant to continue to monitor and observe the trellis for any issues that may arise.



Image 5: 
When we arrived at the field on Wednesday, the plastic was removed from our strawberry bed so we were initially concerned. However, fortunately, we then realized that our strawberry plants do seem to be thriving and blossoming. As you can see in the image below, there is even a flower on one of our strawberry plants. After talking to the teaching farm staff, we decided to leave this flower, instead of cutting it off like previously as we were trying to maximize nutrient flow. We hope that the strawberries continue to grow, especially with all of the upcoming warm temperatures.




Image 6: 
Some of our crops, of all variations, are still struggling from the pests. Even after the teaching farm staff sprayed organic pesticides, we are still seeing some pest damage, as seen below in the image. In the image, I tried to photograph as many crops as possible to show that many crops, not just one type, are really being affected by the pests. Thankfully, we were able to manually remove some pests on the plants, and we hope that the pests will continue to decrease with continued sprays and work.

















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