WVU Organic Research Project

Project Update (7/16/01)

Farm Field Day

• Everybody at the farm is gearing up for our first field day, to begin at 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, August 2nd. This is your chance to get a guided tour of the studies underway, and share a delicious free meal of farm grown produce. Wagons will start their rounds by 3:30, so don't be late!

What's ripe?

• Snap peas -- final harvest has just finished. We pulled the plants last week. 
• String beans -- peak of production. 
• Zucchini -- harvest has just begun.
• Basil -- first harvest expected this week.
• Tomatoes -- fruit beginning to size up, but nothing ripe yet.

Buy our produce at the Mountain People's Market, the Saturday Market on High St., and select local restaurants.

Critter counts

• The ground hogs had a feast on our Brussels sprouts last week. We have beefed up our electric fence system in an attempt to keep them out.
• Our pumpkins and zucchini seem to be recovering from an onslaught of cucumber beetles, thanks to some help from neem. Neem is a botanical insecticide derived from a tree native to India. It disrupts insect molting and discourages feeding, but is not toxic to mammals. In fact, it is a common ingredient in Asian toothpastes!
• The number of caterpillars on our Brussels sprouts has fallen dramatically after two applications of the bacterial insecticide Bacillus thuringiensis. This bacteria is commonly found in nature. The variety we applied causes a disease in caterpillars, leaving other insects unharmed.
• Early blight is just beginning to appear on our tomato plants. The disease could spread if we have wet weather.

Brown bag lunch

• Last Thursday, July 11th, Bill Bryan gave a talk about the farm's sheep -- a component of the small farm system trial. Our next brown bag lunch will be Thursday, July 25th. Bring your lunch to the farm at 12:30 to learn about and discuss an aspect of the project. Free ice cream from the WVU dairy will be served. 

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