This week’s update is from Purdue Student Farm Intern Nellie Waltherly.
Well, the weather has been certainly on the upswing out here! Not only an actual breeze every once in a while, but also some fantastically moody skies. Lots of goldfinches and swallow activity, and we’ve had the first sighting of our resident red-shouldered hawks this morning (to be fair, they’re loud enough to be rather difficult to miss). We’ve also found a finch nest in a field, of all places. Which raises several questions, the least of which being their species (some kind of native finch?) and the state of the parent birds’ common sense. An iNaturalist page for the farm is now up and running, so if you’re ever out here and want to log anything, here is the link: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/purdue-student-farm-biodiversity
In terms of actual, you know, vegetable growing, we’ve been getting prepped for this week’s start to the CSA, so lots of harvesting and washing. First beets and tomatoes of the season as well and I maintain that our golden beet variety are some of the prettiest colors we have out here. There are also a whole new set of tomato varieties we’re trying out for high tunnel production, and some of our heirloom inclined plants have some of the most beautiful purple streaks in their fruit. They’re a real treat to get to watch day by day. Summer squash is also growing at full tilt, so I, at the very least, will be breaking out the zucchini bread recipe.
