Market Farming

[robert schuler <sunnfarm AT bellatlantic.net>]

I find the best results come from removing the plastic and covering with 40% 
shade cloth,
I get the advantage of natural rainfall and less water stress and a good 10* 
lower temp on
hottest days,and you don't get the intense heat buildup on the plants, you 
can use 50%
shade but its seems too dark and the temps are not much cooler, remove shade 
on extended
cloudy days.
Sunny Meadow Farm
Bridgeton, NJ.

Windwalker wrote:

> Since lettuce has always been one of our trademark products (and favorites)
> I am pleased to report that I cut lettuce yesterday from our hoop house that
> has withstood 100º weather for a prolong period and is still highly edible
> and equally as important beautiful.  The variety is rouge grenoblaise from
> Pinetree Seeds.  In their catalog it say that it stands for 45 days without
> bolting, which I took with a grain of salt but decided to try it anyway.  I
> even cut one head that had started bolting and we ate it last night, no
> bitterness.
>
> Our hoop house has shade cloth on it which reduces the color development
> somewhat but this lettuce has a beautiful iridescent quality about it and a
> tinge of red.  Definitely worth a try.  I started these, redina (our
> favorite) and vulcan (second favorite) on May 1 and transplanted them into
> the hoop house on May 23.  I started cutting them around the middle of June
> and had a steady supply of head lettuce for market until last week.  I could
> have cut some but didn't thinking that from all the heat it was probably
> bitter and not worth wasting time.  I'll see what I have to cut today.
> Lettuce this late in July should be good for about $3 a head at our market.
>
> These are the first Pinetree lettuce seeds I've used and the germination
> isn't as good as Johnny's.  I actually tested redina from both sources and
> Johnny's was quite a bit better for germination.  I don't know why that
> would be.
>
> joan vibert
> ottawa, kansas
>
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to market-farming as: sunnfarm AT bellatlantic.net
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
> leave-market-farming-103831V AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
> To subscribe send email to lyris AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
> with message text containing: subscribe market-farming <your name>