Not feeling imaginative this week. I think there is just too much to do. So just a bunch of random stuff in this week’s newsletter.
I forgot to mention and to remind everyone that we take back the pint clam shells we use for cherry tomatoes. We ran out this past week. On-farm members can just put them on the sign-in table. Drop site members can put them in the top tote of the stack of empty totes when you pick up your produce.
It has not been a very good melon year this year — too chilly. We picked the best ones we could find and they weren’t very big. Hopefully they taste good.
Speaking of not doing well, the garlic was a bust this season. This problem started two years ago when we had a wet October followed by a quick cold snap in November. We barely got the cloves into the ground before it froze solid. The result was smaller than usual bulbs last summer. We then used these smaller than usual bulbs last October to plant this year’s garlic. With the late spring the plants didn’t come up until May, which didn’t give them a very long growing season. The result was less than small bulbs and unfortunately we will not have any garlic this summer. So we are going back to square one and starting with new stock this fall. It kind of hurts since garlic was the first crop we planted and have been using the progeny of the original garlic every year. I guess it couldn’t last forever.
Since we have no garlic to give you this season I’ve been asked where to get garlic. Well, as a service to our members I’ve lined up a garlic source (the place we purchased our planting garlic) to provide those who want garlic a way to get garlic. If you’d like to purchase garlic to tide you over until next summer when hopefully we will be back in the garlic business let me know how many pounds you’d like. A pound is 6 to 10 bulbs. The cost is $15/pound. We should have it here is two weeks so order soon. And again sorry for the lack of garlic.
Farm News
Still farming.
What will we have this week?
Less tomatoes but still tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, tomatillos, potatoes, lots of carrots, lots of beans, some eggplants, some squash, some cucumbers, onions, the leftover sweet corn, some watermelons, sweet peppers, hot peppers, some cabbage, cilantro and maybe some other herbs.
As a heads up, we are in the transition period where the warm season vegetables are slowing down or ending. Sweet corn is over after the few remaining ears are taken this week. Cucumbers, and summer squash are just about done. And eggplants have slowed considerably. However some summer vegetables are still going strong. We plant three plantings of beans so we’ll have them most likely until frost (with a week or two off if the timing isn’t perfect). The tomatoes have slowed but they are still producing. Same with the tomatillos. The cherry tomatoes seem to have been hit with disease (typical by this time of year) so we might have another week of them though in a much smaller supply. We harvested all the onions this past week and will have them every week for the rest of the season. For a while they may be dirty since they are too dry to wash yet too fresh to peel the outside papery layer.
The winter squash and pie pumpkins are looking good. We’ll continue to let them grow since there isn’t any frost in the near future.
And finally, we have three sandhill cranes hanging around the farm. They don’t let us get close enough to get a good picture but are fun to watch from a distance. I think they are just passing through on their way south, stopping at the farm for a snack.
I guess that is all for now. As always do not hesitate to contact me with questions, comments, suggestions, etc.