[Market-farming] CSA Broccoli Question and Fall Planting Questions
cjmaness at juno.com
cjmaness at juno.com
Mon Jun 15 22:39:18 EDT 2009
Jay,
Yes, we do plant broccoli for fall. Our market ends Oct. 31st, and I'm still playing around with starting and transplanting dates. This year, I seeded in the greenhouse May 25th, and it is almost ready to transplant. I'm hoping to start harvesting around mid Sept. This is the first time I've started things so early, but in years past if I followed university guidelines, our broccoli wasn't ready until 2 weeks before market closed. Not good. I basically repeated my spring planting, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and brussels sprouts. We do have a winter market available now, so we can continue to sell after our summer market closes.
Our biggest challenges (so far) with the fall planting are either grasshoppers or I guess, fall army worms? Some kind of worm that moves in from the neighbors wheat field and can wipe us out overnight. We've learned the hard way to not plant fall crops in that part of our field, which makes the crop rotation a little trickier.
We grow Premium Crop, Everest, and Packman. Nothing special about any of them really, but they have been fairly consistent with our crazy weather. We had the same sort of spring you had, and they came through with very little loss. We don't grow huge amounts of broccoli. 2000 plants of broccoli, 1800 cauliflower, and 800 each of cabbage and brussels sprouts.
Carla
Perkins, OK
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