Welcome back to another beautiful week on the Purdue student farm!
The heat has been punishing, but we’re rewarded (or perhaps further punished) with increasing harvest loads, specifically of our zucchini and tomatoes.
Though last week was the true pest edition of this email, numbers are still on the rise across the board. A new generation of tomato hornworms have cropped up, Japanese beetles are plentiful, and the deer have somehow developed the power of intangibility, moving through not only our fence, but the walls of our high tunnels. Another rabbit nest was discovered and dismantled (we release them in the woods, don’t worry! But they’ll be back with a vengeance).
We’ve got the small farm education field day coming up on the 23rd next week, which we’ll be prepping for over the next week. If you are interested in attending, you can register here!
With that, I’d love to introduce our spotlight for this week: the wonderful Kayla Quintero!
Hello, all! I’m Kayla and I just graduated from Purdue with a Master’s degree in Horticulture. During my graduate program, I got to do research on carrots at the Student Farm, trialing new varieties, discovering differences in their microbiomes, and connecting those differences to disease resistance. Now, I’m working here full-time while I prepare for my move to Austin, TX. My favorite part about working on the Farm is knowing that my hard work feeds my community. I’m a big believer that food is love, and I hope each CSA bag feels like a big hug from your neighbors at the Farm!