WVU Organic Research Project

Project Update (7/23/01)

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. Pre-register by sending an email to Tom Batchelor. Wagons will start their rounds by 3:30, so don't be late!

String beans -- one last harvest before we pull the plants.
Zucchini -- beginning to come on strong.
Basil -- first harvest last week, with much more to come.
Tomatoes -- I ate my first farm tomato last week (Mmm... sweet and juicy). This week's harvest will be larger, and we should have plenty of tomatoes in time for the field day.
Grain -- we harvested our wheat and rye last week.

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

Aphid levels remain low on the tomatoes, thanks to a bright red midge larva called Aphidoletes aphidimyza. Wherever aphids appear this little predator is not far behind.
Early blight is spreading on our tomato plants. A large-scale trial designed by Jim Kotcon and Linley Smith will determine whether interplanting resistant and non-resistant varieties slows its spread. A companion planting study designed by Michael Bomford will indicate whether the disease spreads more quickly in garden beds growing only tomatoes than in tomato beds interplanted with other crops.

On Thursday, July 11th, Bill Bryan gave a talk about the farm's sheep -- a component of the small farm system trial. The July 26th brown bag lunch will be a dry run of the field trip tour. Bring a brown bag lunch at 12:30 and enjoy some free ice cream from the WVU dairy as we prepare for the coming field day.

Updated
07/16/01