Welcome to the Vegetable Crops Hotline (VCH), Purdue Extension’s exclusive newsletter for people in the business of growing vegetables.
Figure 1. Pepper variety Flavorburst is almost ready to harvest (Photo by Petrus Langenhoven).
Figure 2. We have been harvesting eggplant for the past 5 weeks. The variety in this picture is Dancer (Photo by Petrus Langenhoven).
Everyone is probably seeing a glut of tomatoes and other vegetables coming in from the farm or your personal gardens. It is certainly the month of plenty!
This issue includes an important notice from the Environmental Protection Agency. We also examine the importance of cover cropping and include our regular insect and weed spotlight articles. An update on the Clearspring Produce Auction is also included.
Details about the upcoming September 4 Irrigation Workshop for Small-Scale Vegetable Producers are now available. The Mechanical Weed Control Field Day is the following week, September 11, at Meigs. Read more about these events in this newsletter. Reserve your spot now!
Website Links
Frequently, we include links to websites or publications available online. If you can’t access these resources, don’t hesitate to contact your local Extension office or us to request a hard copy of the information.
Midwest Vegetable Production Guide
This annually revised guide summarizes currently suggested fertility, cultural, and pest management techniques and tools for commercial vegetable growers. It is a collaboration of land-grant universities from eight states. It provides information on vegetable production that is valid for the current year in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and Ohio. The audience for the Midwest Vegetable Production Guide is commercial growers.
The searchable online guide is available at mwveguide.org. There is no charge for accessing the guide, and any updates will be available immediately. Therefore, access the online guide to get the most up-to-date version of the Midwest Vegetable Production Guide mwveguide.org/guide. You can also download a free copy of the guide from your computer or purchase a hard copy for $12 from Stephen Meyers at slmeyers@purdue.edu.
Do not hesitate to contact me at plangenh@purdue.edu if you have any questions or suggestions for improving the newsletter. Let me know if there are specific topics you would like to see more of in the newsletter. Also, let us know if things are not working for you. We want to improve the newsletter, and your input is valuable.
We hope you enjoy the newsletter. Happy reading!