A couple announcements then on to farm news!
Due to all the rain this past Friday night the Garlic Planting Gala is rescheduled to Sunday October 15th from 1:00 until done, followed by a bonfire and potluck. Sorry we can’t make it on Saturday the 14th but there is already something in the way. Let me know if you can make it. We are typically done planting garlic by 4:00. Eating by 5:00 and done by 7:00 so plenty early.
We are taking orders for 2018 (2018 already? Seems like it was only yesterday when all years started with a 19!) You can reserve your share by putting down a $100 deposit. Send/bring in a check, or bring in cash. If you want to pay with a credit card you have to pay the full amount since our store doesn’t allow partial payments.
We are starting to assemble WinterShares. These may or may not be available this week.
Farm News
Frost. We got our first frost of the season last night. We saw the forecast was for frost so we went into frost mode Monday. What is frost mode? When frost is forecasted for the first time in the fall we review what is left in the field that is frost sensitive, then develop a plan to harvest as much as we can during the time we have available. Typically the frost sensitive plants still around in the fall are tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, eggplants, beans, hot peppers, sweet potatoes, and okra. Since this year’s frost came later than usual the beans were already done for the year. The outdoor tomatoes and cherry tomatoes were done as well. If the frost was earlier we would put row covers on the beans to get them through the cold. We would keep the pepper plants alive by running the sprinklers overnight (click here to learn why this works!) That way we could have several more weeks of peppers and beans. But with it being late in the season we just harvested the peppers green and let the bean plants perish.
We harvested all the ripening tomatoes in the hoop house. There is a good chance these plants will survive since they are indoors but there is also a chance they would not. By harvesting the ripening ones we hedge our bets and don’t lose all of them yet still have a chance for more later.
We harvested all the remaining tomatillos, eggplants and hot peppers. There are quite a few baby eggplants this week but then we’ll be done with them for the season. The okra was harvested as well though it was pretty well done for the season — okra likes it hot.
That left the sweet potatoes. We started digging them on Monday until we ran out of time. They look pretty good and though the frost will kill the tops we still have a day or two to dig the roots. Hopefully today or Wednesday we will finish this project.
That’s pretty much how our long, frost-plan Monday went.
What will we have this week? The usual onions, and garlic. We’ll also have peppers, eggplants, hot peppers, tomatoes, tomatillos (not many), winter squash, pie pumpkins, potatoes, a few okra, a few cabbage and lemongrass.
This week also includes FruitShare, CheeseShare, EggShare, IceCreamShare, and MeatShare. As mentioned above we may or may not have WinterShares available.
That is all for now. Let me know if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, etc.