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Festivities at the Learning Farm

On Saturday May 6th, Extension’s Harvest Kitchen and high tunnel were filled with families and friends enjoying the beautiful sunny day during the Grow and Preserve Open House. Visitors learned about numerous food preservation and gardening resources available at Extension through an assortment of activities. We shot some photos of all the happenings, check them out below!

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As a result of our many years of teaching food preservation classes, the Harvest Kitchen has a well-stocked kitchen. For the Open House, we assembled a Preservation Equipment Showcase so community members could wander through the shelves to compare tools. In 2022, after 50 years of putting up food for her own household, Mary Robinson went through the training to become a Master Food Preserver volunteer. She’s pictured here, sharing information about food preservation with a visitor. Other volunteers sharing their experiences in preserving the harvest include Kathryn Farr, Sasha Kocho-Williams, and John Youngblood.
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One thing our Master Food Preserver volunteers love is how canned foods pack a lot of flavor while simplifying future meals. Danielle Barse and Jan DeWaters gave out free samples of chili and corn relish in the Harvest Kitchen, along with the recipes to make these water bath canned and pressure canned recipes at home.

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Ensuring a bountiful fall harvest with succession planting

Mid-July and August are a great time to be a gardener. Many Of our crops are in full production and vegetables such as lettuce, scallions, peas, beans and beets have become a regular part of our table fare. Our early broccoli and cauliflower are finishing up as we eagerly anticipate harvesting our first cucumbers, new potatoes, and (yes!) ripe tomatoes. Yet even as we celebrate our summer harvest, we can look forward to continuing this harvest into late summer and throughout the fall by succession planting. Succession planting is a method that creates a continuous and extended harvest through seeding and planting multiple times in the spring and summer. This method is a valuable way to make efficient use of limited garden space and the limited growing season available to North Country gardeners.

You may have noticed over the past few weeks that your lettuce and spinach are becoming bitter and sending up flower stalks. We call this process “bolting.” Likewise, unharvested broccoli heads will suddenly open up with yellow flowers and cauliflower heads will lose all their appeal… now is the time to replant parts of the garden to secure a fall harvest. Vegetable plants that are over-mature, or no longer producing or inedible should be pulled and composted to make space for your fall crops.

What can you plant in mid-July? You can start summer cucurbits like yellow squash, zucchinis, and cucumbers; brassicas like broccoli, cauliflower and kale; as well as many direct seeded veggies like bush beans, spinach, lettuce, carrots, beets, radishes and peas. Read on for information on starting each of these for fall. Read more Ensuring a bountiful fall harvest with succession planting

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Why and how to Prune Your Tomatoes

If you haven’t pruned your tomatoes before, now is a great time to start! This simple process has many advantages including improved air circulation and better light penetration, both of which can prevent disease. It also yields good-sized fruit and more manageable plants that take up less space and are easier to trellis.

The only tool you will need is clean pruners. You can play it safe by keeping some disinfectant handy to sterilize your pruners between plants, or between garden beds if you’re concerned about spreading disease. If you have a lot of plants to prune, wear gloves to keep your hands from turning dark green by the end.

  1. The first step is to identify the parts of your tomato plant. Find the main stem and look for the places where suckers and leaves branch off. The leaf has leaflets and points straight out or slightly down, whereas the sucker points slightly up and is located above the leaf. Together they make a “K” shape with the main stem (see photo). Suckers can be tiny or large and have their own leaves, suckers, and even fruit clusters!
  2. Photo showing suckers and leaves on a tomato plantNow identify the fruit clusters, which can have buds, yellow flowers, or even small green tomatoes.
  3. Experts advise pruning indeterminate tomatoes to two vigorous stems: the main stem and one sucker. This will give the plant a “Y” shape.
  4. To determine which sucker to leave, locate the lowest fruit cluster and leave the sucker immediately below that. Remove all other suckers from the plant. Small suckers can be snapped by pulling to the side with your fingers, but use your clean pruners for larger suckers, particularly the ones at the bottom of the plant.
  5. With determinate tomatoes (check the seed packet, label, or look up the variety if you’re not sure) remove all suckers below the lowest fruit cluster.
  6. Lastly, remove the lower leaves that touch the ground or are yellowing. This reduces the chance for soil-borne diseases to reach the plant leaves and fruit.  If you have powdered cinnamon at home, apply a little bit on the exposed part of the stem after the cut. Cinnamon is a fungicide and can help prevent diseases from reaching your plant after pruning. 

Yields will increase and the chance of disease will decrease with regular pruning.

If you’re in St. Lawrence County, contact our Growline for gardening advice at SLCGrowline@gmail.com. Our Master Gardener Volunteers will happily answer your questions.

Erica LaFountain is Community Horticulture Educator and Master Gardener Coordinator for St. Lawrence County. She has a background in organic vegetable farming, gardening, and orcharding and has a homestead in Potsdam, NY.