We are hoping to dig garlic this Friday July 31st and as always could use a bunch of help. Some years we have lots of people. Other years we have hardly any. I’m hoping for the former this year. So if you can lend a hand please come by. We’ll start around 9:00 and go until it is done or everyone has had enough. Some weather folks are forecasting rain Thursday night into Friday. Others think this is unlikely. We can’t dig if the ground is too wet or if it is raining so check in with me if there is any question. Let me know if you can make it!
A quick reminder to our drop site members. Every box we send to drop sites has a name on it. If it isn’t your name do not take the contents of the box. If you can’t find a name on the box then you didn’t find your name so don’t take the contents of the box. Only take the contents of boxes if you find your name on the box. This solves 90% of the problems we encounter with drop site pick-up.
What will we have this week?
Way too many cucumbers. Way too many zucchinis. Way too many eggplants (and we grew far fewer eggplant plants this year!). Sweet corn (another early, small variety call Sugar Buns. It tends to not fill its ears very well but it tastes good!) Onions, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, potatoes (Yukon Golds), very few broccoli, very few cauliflower, some cabbage, some tomatillos, okra, and of course the things I have forgotten.
It is a Flower week.
Farm News
Vegetables to a vegetable farmer are like children to a child farmer, er parent. You really do have favorites but never divulge which they are. Well today I am going to reveal the secret and expose those vegetables that are not my favorites my least favorites. And I don’t mean least favorite in a culinary context but in how they are raised. And despite what everyone says, each vegetable like each child needs to be raised differently. Can you imagine trying to raise your children with consistency across all your children? Not going to happen. And that is true of veggies. They each need their own, special kind of love.
I’m going to start with one of my children that when I first started raising it was in the least favorite category, moved to the middle of the pack — not least but not most — then as of late fell back into the least favorite. And that is cauliflower. Why the variable ranking over time? Let’s first discuss cauliflower raising in general. It is very picky about weather. It wants the Goldilocks of weather. Can’t be too cold or it buttons – sets a small head before the plant even grows. Too hot and the head doesn’t stay firm. Too wet and it gets black rot. Too dry and, well we can irrigate if it is too dry. It is just picky, picky, picky. I think it is on the spectrum.
So back to the beginning. When we first started growing cauliflower we tried a bunch of different varieties. None seemed to work. Then we took a risk and bought the really expensive seed. We thought maybe you have to pay the price to grow cauliflower. And it worked for the most part. It wasn’t the biggest cauliflower but it formed fine heads and grew generally well.
Then that variety disappeared one year. So we were back to where we were prior to the expensive seed. We tried a variety recommended by one of our seed suppliers; a seed that was quite reasonably priced. Our expectations for success were quite low but surprisingly this variety turned out quite well!
We then were content growing cauliflower with this new variety until about three years ago when it went away; it has not returned. Since then we’ve struggled to find a replacement. No cauliflower seems to work with the weather we have lately. This season was exceptionally bad. It was below freezing for much of the first few weeks of the cauliflowers young life. This caused most of the first planting to button. Then it turned exceptionally hot. This caused most of the rest to make funky, weird heads. We planted a second planting for the fall hoping the weather cooperates with this variety of cauliflower but I don’t have high hopes. So cauliflower ranks up near the top — if not at the top — of least favorite veggies to grow.
Wow, all that for just the first one of my least favorites. Do I have room for a second? Sure, why not. Another on the list is broccoli — the greener cousin of the cauliflower. Much like cauliflower it too is sensitive to weather, just not as sensitive. And more importantly, broccoli breeders seem to have better success breeding broccoli that works in various types of weather. The unfortunate part is each variety has its sweet spot. Some grow well in cold weather. Some to well maturing when it is hot but will perish if they get too cold. Some have well domed heads and shed water, thus preventing brown bead. The list goes on and on. And so in the broccoli farming world we have a saying, tell me what kind of weather we will have this season and I’ll tell you what broccoli to grow.
Since our weather prediction machine is still in beta and seems to glitch pretty often we’ve relied on a tried and true method of growing broccoli — plant a whole bunch of different varieties and hope one of them hits the mark. And plant a bunch of successions so if the early weather doesn’t cooperate, maybe later weather will. We did this this year and we’ve had middling success. Very few of the broccoli varieties were successful with this season’s weather. There really isn’t any broccoli we’ve found that can grow in the hot weather we’ve had this summer. So if you do get broccoli from us you’ll find the heads are funky — kind of like my hair in my 7th grade school picture, sticking up all over the place (someone should have given me a comb).
So yes, over the years I’ve realized what I was taught back in farmin’ school when I first started farmin’. The teacher, a long time farmer, said, “If I never have to grow another head of broccoli I’ll die a happy man.” Didn’t understand it at the time but I’ve since come to embrace it.
Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned the pests and diseases of both of these crops, which are plentiful and myriad.
Maybe I’ll save the rest of the list for another newsletter. Let’s see, two least favorites per newsletter. Something like 12 weeks left in the season. I think we’ll just barely get through the list before the season ends!
Recipe of the Week
This is a recipe from one or our long-time members. She says they eat this in the south. I have no reason to doubt her. Give it a try with some of those delicious cukes we send your way!
Southern Cucumber Salad
Ingredients
- 3 cucumbers peeled and sliced into bite-sized pieces
- 1 c white wine vinegar
- ¾ c water
- ¾ c sugar
- dash hot pepper
- dash dried parsley
- dash black pepper
- dash basil
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients except cucumbers in pan
- Heat until sugar dissolves
- Pour hot mixture over cucumbers
- Store in air-tight container
Notes
Here is a recipe one of our members recommended. The funny thing is that it is one of our recipes written in the old recipe format and I don’t recall writing it. I think one of our members gave me the recipe. Anyway, give it a try!
Joke of the Week
What did the broccoli say to the cauliflower?
You look a little pale today.
Which reminds me of this episode of Parks and Recreation.
As always, send in your comments, questions, suggestions, cucumber recipes and anything else you think would be helpful or interesting.