Week 1, June 24th – 29th :
Week one’s summary was a lot of figuring out what to do in the circumstance of this project, and I think I have decided to do a history on the specific varieties of eggplant that have been used in the project. With much uncertainty left in the project, I feel that another great idea would be to document the eggplant varieties through photos, which I would be taking every week. As for the current state and updates to the eggplants themselves, they are looking good, with some minor setbacks. Sarah Williams, as well as Rejjie clipped the dead bottoms of the leaves of the plants, effectively giving them more energy to thrive. There have been sightings of flea beetles, which are a pest commonly found on plants in the PNW. Overall, I am very excited and interested in the project, and I am excited to see where it leads in the future.
Week #2, July 1st – July 5th :
Week two’s summary included a lot of heat. The weeds were growing big enough to the point where they needed to be weeded, which i ended up doing on Tuesday and Wednesday. The growth of the eggplants themselves was good, growing about a half inch to an inch each within the week period. I also noticed some of the eggplants had started to flower and even fruit, a good sign for the project. The irrigation continues to work marvelously, and the plants are getting enough water daily. I took photos of the eggplants, which I will add into a separate part of WordPress.
Week #3, July 8th– July 12th :
A lot happened in the 3rd week of the eggplant summer quarter trial, in terms of management of the crops. First, the bottom leaves were removed to allow accelerated growth, some of which were saved and used to cook fried leaves with. Secondly, we put a layer of surround, which is an organic compound made mostly of clay, to fight the flea beetle infestation we have been having. Surround is very white, and by spraying it it coated the leaves with a very white substance. Thirdly, we trellised the eggplants with what is called a Florida weave. We did this by using twine and wrapping it in a cress cross pattern across each plant, effectively holding the plants up and forcing them to grow higher as opposed to outward. These changes have been made at the call of the team and have been beneficial to the eggplant project overall. After the surround was sprayed, I noticed much less flea beetle activity. Furthermore, the trellising has helped the plants immensely with staying upright, which is critical to the trial.
Week #4- July 16th-July 20th :
The eggplants grew exponentially in the last week, except for a few stragglers. I spent the week watching over the eggplants while working as an intern. I went on Friday to attend the Marylin Sittaker newsletter writing workshop over zoom, which was highly informative. She talked about what she has done through her newsletters, which was inspiring to say the least. She talked about some of the formatting for the newsletter that she does, which included an overview of the foods they were sending out in the CSA boxes and the cultural relevance of each of the foods that could be made with the produce. While listening to the presentation I was gaining ideas on what to do about our newsletter, which we would like to do for the eggplants.
Week #5- July 24th – July 28th :
Week #5 was another round of weeding for the eggplants, which took most of the work week because the temperatures were so hot. Every day was clear, and the sun shone down on everyone with no signs of letting up. I weeded the pathways of the trial, as well as any weeds that were in the holes that held the plants themselves. I used the scuffle hoe and a landscaping rake to unearth the weeds and move them into piles, making clean-up more efficient. The surround that was put on continues to help protect the plants from flea beetle damage, as no new bites have been spotted since the surround was applied.
Week #6- August 1st – August 4th
We started the week by trellising the eggplants for the second time, because they had grown so much due to the heatwave, because of the eggplant’s natural habitat. There was also a small amount of rain this week, which washed away some of the surround. In perfect fashion, the flea beetles came back right away. I noticed the damage on the garden eggs specifically, and then started noticing it on other varieties as well. Using this information, we can presume that we can spray another layer of surround, which would be good to get rid of the insects. We could also investigate other options, which would be beneficial in the science of pest control for eggplants. Another project I started was cutting off the dead leaves from the bottom of the plants to ensure that the plant’s primary energy was being spent producing healthy leaves and fruits. This is a common practice for plants, known as ‘’training’’ the plant.
Week #7, August 8th –August 12th
Week #7 was a lot of focusing on the harvesting and the meeting that was held on Friday of the week. The harvest was done by Sarah Dyer, and all but two of the varieties are ready for harvesting. During our meeting on friday, we all talked about the future of the project for the coming weeks, and opportunities in the coming quarter. Another part of the field research/ tending to the plants that I had done in week #7 was cutting the dead leaves off another row of the plants, a badly needed process. The plants have a lot of leaves toward the bottom that don’t serve a lot of purpose for our part of the project and removing them helps the fruits and the upper leaves to grow, which is beneficial to our harvest.
Week #8, August 11th-15th:
Week 8 was another harvest, and a new edition to our online work, a pamphlet. We made a new pamphlet for the selling of eggplants at the market stand on the organic farm. We had a work session to work through all the different bits and pieces of creating the pamphlet, including nutritional facts, an overview of the plant, some of the history, and recipes for cooking the eggplant, which have been tested and approved by the students. This is very helpful and beneficial to the project to help the average American get more into the eggplant without having to be a researcher.
Week #9, August 19th – August 23rd:
Week #9 was a week of caretaking for me and the eggplants, specifically with the plants themselves. I got to do my first solo harvest, which was very successful. Picking through all the fruits, the only ones that were ready to harvest are the garden egg and the zebra varieties, () with only a handful of fruits cominng from the other varieties. In all, about half the fruits were ripe, and half of the ripe fruits were overripe. Given these facts, we still managed to get about 30 good ripe fruits that were ready to sell at the market. While I was harvesting the eggplants, I was going through and takking out dead and diseased leaves, to help the plant focus on growing fruits. While I was doing this, I noticed that the flea beetle damage was stagnant, and not increasing beyonnd what I had previously observed. I took pictures of the diseased leaves and will be adding them to the photo gallery.
Week #10, August 26th- August 30th
This is the final week of the eggplant summer quarter project, and there has been a lot of progress made in the growing of these plants. I have watched them grow from 8 inches to about 4 feet 6 inches, teeming with fruit. I have weeded the pathways, I have trellised, I have harvested, and it was all worth the effort. Watching these plants grow has been a wonderful experience, and I am glad to have been able to be a part of it. Some of the key things I noticed over the quarter were that the growth was slow in the first few weeks, and then in week 3 there was a big heatwave of about 100 degrees. After that the plants shot up and kept growing. This makes sense, because the plants originate from sub–Saharan Africa, where it is a much hotter climate than here. Another key thing I noticed about the plants was the pest damage. Every african/brazillian/asain eggplant I came across, there was always insect damage. We sprayed callun clay to get rid of the flea beetles, which worked moderately well. The rain came and washed the clay away, and by week 7 there were again flea beetles and earwigs.
Something big these eggplants taught me is patience. Watching these grow reminded me that things take time to achieve fruit and mature, and I think that is a valuable lesson in life. Another big lesson I took away is learning the biology of plants, to look out for when plants are damaged or diseased, and what to look for. This is a valuable skill that I will be taking into the future, with all the plants that I have the opportunity to grow.
Field Trip Reflection:
Field trip summary, August 14th:
On August 14th, the eggplant crew took a fieldtrip to a farm/ food hub event in Kent Washington, about 50 minutes north of Olympia. The farm is called Horse neck farms, and they are a community-based garden learning area that leases its land to immigrants who want to farm the crops they have in wherever they came from, or farming anything as a learning and business opportunity. It was amazing to see this farm, because of the sheer amount of land it took up, and the diversity that it held. There were many plants at Horse neck that I had never seen before. I had thought of a new trellising method for our organic farm to try, because I had never seen it utilized before it the farming world, and when we went to Horse neck farms, it was right there. the main purpose of coming to the farm was to look at the solanum apothecium they had, which was the zebra variety. When we got to the field they were in, we were astonished to see that they had grown in more of a diagonal pattern than I had seen with any crop before. It was freshly weeded and looked very nice; the plants had bushed outward more than upward which I found interesting. I wonder if that makes them grow better?
Another big thing I noticed is that they don’t spray anything on their plants, so the eggplants were infested with flea beetles. This didn’t seem to affect the plants’ overall performance, because it was fully matured when we came to visit. Looking at another growing of the eggplants that we had been growing almost felt like a new experience, it felt surprising that someone was growing them here. There were other crops we saw that I was surprised about, like a Himalayan nettle variety. After the tour of the farm, we went to the market that one of the farmers on Horse neck farm was selling at. It filled me with joy to see someone growing food to sell it, and then selling it. It was a full circle moment that made me happy. afterwards we got some food from a Congolese restaurant, which was very enjoyable. There were only two people working in the kitchen, but they made sure we were all fed, which was very nice of them.
Pamphlet reflection:
In weeks 7,8,9, I had the opportunity along with our eggplant group to work on a pamphlet that would showcase and give an overview of the project and what the eggplants are, as to inform people that have probably only heard about the Italian variety of eggplant. This pamphlet was a lot of fun to make and has a lot of knowledge that is easy to follow. Some of the information included would be nutritional value, recipes, an overview of the eggplant’s history, where they come from, and why the eggplant is called an eggplant.
The portion I worked on specifically was the nutritional value of the African eggplant, which I found astonishing. They are very healthy, covering almost all the vitamins you need in your day. Also included are lots of minerals and healthy nutrients that are needed in the human body, such as zinc, and magnesium. it was very interesting to learn about this, and being able to teach someone else about these health benefits feels like a big win.
