Market Farming

["David I." <mhcsa AT bcn.net>]

Sue wrote: About how big can you make the cut on basil with out
it being too much? 

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We grow all our basil in the greenhouse @ 10"x10"and harvest by pinching back to the last node before the main stem, this doubles the number of stems to harvest from each time and keeps the quality high. basil harvested this way takes longer but the end product is 100% useable by the customer and should be sold that way. We do it this way even though we have a C.S.A. and do not command a premium. The plants produce for us from our first pick up [June 1st] until mid October. If the plants get out of hand, or diseased, we hack them all the way back to two nodes on the main stem and hand out the prunings for mass Pesto making.

Yours  
David Inglis
Mahaiwe Harvest C.S.A.
Housatonic MA