blackberries

Summer draws to an end just as new students begin their time at Rural Studio. But all through the summer swelter, it has been last year’s leftover students—now graduated—whose work has kept the farm running.

A smiling student holds up a large plastic bag full of ripe cherry tomatoes of varying colors

An assistant manager harvests ripe cherry tomatoes

A student harvest ripe blackberries off the vines

Summer is the most productive time of the year, and each week we spend three days harvesting such things as fresh corn, cherry tomatoes, an assortment of peppers, eggplants, cantaloupes and watermelons, okra, cucumbers, black-eyed peas, snap beans, blackberries and blueberries, apples, Asian pears, leeks, scallions, and shallots, as well as herbs and fresh flowers.

Ripe blackberries sit collected at the bottom of a harvest bucket

A close-up of three harvest buckets with peppers and tomatoes

About 20 watermelon, of three different varieties, lay picked upon the wash table

A 20-gallon harvest tub brims with ears of picked corn as a farm manager trims leaves off the husks

Summer is also the hardest time of the year in terms of insect pest pressure and fast-spreading weeds. Yet, for the first time it never felt like the insects and weeds grew beyond our control. Each year, we diligently hand-weed and turn over crops to minimize the spread of unwanted seeds, and we are now seeing the long-term cumulative efforts pay off.

Two students transplant corn seedlings into prepared beds in the field

A student uses a stir-up hoe to weed between rows of young corn

A long shot of four students stooping down to pick pea pods

Also, we are growing a wider diversity of plants with more aromatic flowers and herbs that make it more difficult for harmful insects to zero in on any one crop. Despite all the hard work and the heat, it’s been a pretty chill summer on the farm.

A close-up of a sunflower head before it has matured and opened

Four students stand amongst the snap beans and pick them

Some crops on the farm have a growth habit that is best supported with the helping hand of a built structure.

Growing pole beans climb the bamboo and twine trellis

One such crop is pole beans, which send out runners to wind their way up whatever they can find. So farm manager Eric Ball and Emily McGlohn built a bamboo and twine structure for the growing bean vines to wind themselves up, though the runners still need a little help to “train” them to find the right places to climb.

A newly built trellis of bamboo and twine for pole beans to climb — April 29

Pole bean seedlings begin to sprout — April 29

Eric built another structure last spring to support blackberry canes. In the first year of growth, the blackberries produce primocanes, which were pruned and managed so that they spread across suspended wires, making them nearly invisible. In the second year, the established primocanes become floricanes, where flowers grow and then bear the fruit Rural Studio Farm is now harvesting.

Flowering and fruiting blackberry canes grown along wire trellis

Because the primocanes were pruned and supported by the wires, the fruit is borne off the canes in easy-to-pick cascades at three-foot and five-foot heights. As the floricanes produce berries, the plants also sprout new primocanes that will be next year’s floricanes. Once fruiting ends, Eric will cut out the spent floricanes and begin pruning and training the primocanes for next year’s harvest.

Blackberries of different stages of ripeness hang from canes

Eric, Steve Long, Xavier Vendrell, and Mary English also built a support structure for determinate field tomatoes so that they will have something to hold them up once they get top-heavy and begin bearing tomatoes.

A view of the newly built tomato cages for determinate field tomatoes

Recently transplanted tomato plants sit within their built climbing structures

Meanwhile, in the greenhouse, plants supported on string-lines—cucumbers, tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes—continue to bear fruit. The greenhouse zucchini has also been extremely prolific

The Closing Of Summer

Farm Support Structures