I don’t understand this whole vaccine passport card idea. Why do we need a card to prove we are vaccinated? Can’t they just scan the microchip that was embedded in our arms when we received the shot? Seems like it would be far harder to forge than some piece of paper.
Anyway, here are a few announcements then some farm info!
We are giving out a lot of cherry tomatoes — or are they cheery tomatoes? — this week and last. If for some reason you can’t keep up be aware that you can store cherry tomatoes in the fridge. I wouldn’t recommend storing regular tomatoes in the fridge but cherries are fine.
We have a lot of tomatoes so if you want to can some we are selling 10# boxes for $30. Let me know if you’d like some and I’ll start a list. We’ll sell them on a first come first served basis. We can also deliver them to drop sites.
Yay! Someone asked a question! “We got a watermelon last week. I’ve never had nor was I aware that yellow fleshed watermelon was possible. With all the seeds handy after eating the melon, I decided to try saving a few. (Additionally Let me know if you’re not okay with that) I’m guessing you must save seeds for many of the things you grow. How do you know you’ll get a watermelon, and not a very odd hybrid due to cross pollination?” Read the answer below!
Farm News
I’m writing this newsletter on Tuesday morning as we continue to catch up on this season’s rain. Based on how wet I got closing the hoop house just as the rain came we will most likely surpass the average rainfall for the season. Who thought we’d be above average rainfall by August 24? With only four days of rain this season? Also based on how hard it was to walk back to the house against the wind I have to assume all the cherry tomatoes just got harvested. Too bad we didn’t leave a bunch of pint clam-shells on the leeward side of the tomato cages.
Anyway, since none of this was forecasted by two separate local news stations it has — to put it mildly — thrown a monkey wrench into today’s plans. We had planned to dig more carrots; harvest more beans, tomatoes and cherry tomatoes; harvest the last planting of sweet corn; and cut the flowers for the FlowerShare bouquets. (I wonder if there are any petals left on the flowers?) Now instead we are just writing a very long newsletter. (It is really hard for the whole crew to get close enough to the keyboard to contribute but we are a close knit bunch). We will try to make some bouquets later today if possible but don’t be surprised if we don’t have them for Tuesday and Wednesday. Maybe I should say, be surprised if we make bouquets for Tuesday and Wednesday because it will be quite the challenge walking through the mud.
Speaking of mud, it will prevent us from harvesting the carrots this morning so again be surprised if you get carrots this week. If the rain and lightening stops we could get the sweet corn. It may be wet and the ground will be muddy but we will do our best to get through it. Today is definitely a have to work outside day. Ugh.
Question of the Week
Perhaps it should be “the question of the season” since I don’t recall getting any other questions this year. Could be my bad memory though. To recap, here is this week’s question:
We got a watermelon last week. I’ve never had nor was I aware that yellow fleshed watermelon was possible. With all the seeds handy after eating the melon, I decided to try saving a few. (Additionally Let me know if you’re not okay with that) I’m guessing you must save seeds for many of the things you grow. How do you know you’ll get a watermelon, and not a very odd hybrid due to cross pollination?
Great question! First let’s start with your admission of not being aware of yellow fleshed watermelon. This is a great example of why CSA is such a good farming model. Or maybe a good example of why our CSA farm is a great choice. With CSA we can grow a lot of different vegetables that might not be popular selling through other sales channels like farmers markets or wholesale. We can take a chance on something and if it turns out great we can continue it in the future. If it goes the other way we won’t be out of business. We’ve been growing this yellow watermelon for 15 or more years. It is our favorite watermelon due to it being consistently delicious even when harvested under-ripe. The seeds are quite expensive but we feel it is worth the price. If we weren’t a CSA farm we might not take a chance on it with the high price. I’m glad we introduced you to the 21st century!
You are free to save the seeds and try growing them next year. But, there is a great chance you will be disappointed. Watermelon are part of the curcurbits family so they have both male and female flowers. To get a fruit, some pollinator insect has to do the dirty deed and inadvertently move pollen from a male flower to a female flower. If successful a fruit will grow. If unsuccessful the flower will fall off the plant. If partially successful the fruit will be malformed. Since we grow four different watermelons there could be cross pollination and the resulting fruit could be significantly different than either parent. In addition, the yellow watermelon is a hybrid seed. A human pollinator crossed a male flower from a specific variety of watermelon with a female flower from another specific variety of watermelon to create this new version of a watermelon. Even if our plants didn’t cross naturally, the seeds from this hybrid are not the same as the initial seed from the hybrid created by the seed company. So again the watermelon would most likely not be what you are looking for. But there is a chance you could have an even better watermelon — not a great chance but a chance. It would be a one-of-a-kind that you’ll never be able to reproduce. So go for it! And if you want to learn more about vegetable procreation check out this newsletter about the controversy surrounding Mr. Potato Head. You should probably read it even if not interested in vegetable procreation. It could cheer you up on this rainy morning!
Finally, the only “seeds” we save from year to year are the garlic bulbs, so not technically seeds. We used to save potatoes — again not seeds — from one year to the next but we got late blight one season so we couldn’t save any of the potatoes that year. Ever since we just buy new potatoes for planting each year. There are a couple of reasons we don’t save seeds. 1 – We grow a number of hybrids that won’t come true from their seeds, and 2 – We already have too much to do when we’d be saving the seeds, and I suppose 3 – Most seeds aren’t wildly expensive — except for the hybrids, especially watermelons — so saving seeds isn’t necessarily cost effective and I’ll add 4 – the seeds we tried to save in the past didn’t grow so we’d have to educate ourselves on how to best save each type of plant’s seeds. Seed saving is a whole business in itself.
Plant of the week
Okra! Why do we choose okra as this week’s plant of the week? Because it is producing more than we can possibly harvest so there will be lots of okra this week! What I like most about okra is that when cut in half crosswise it forms a pentagon. How many other vegetables can claim that? I’m not a big consumer of okra. In fact I need to do more experimenting. But it seems those of you who pick-up at the farm seem to like it so that’s positive. I’ve heard from quite a few people that they pickle the okra. I’ve also heard a lot of southern fried okra ideas. And finally there is bhindi marsala, a popular Indian dish that I’ll try making one of these days. If you have other good ideas for the okra feel free to share them on our Facebook Group page or email them to me and I will share them.
What will we have this week?
Besides okra you mean? We will have lots of tomatoes, lots of cherry tomatoes, onions, garlic, cabbage, peppers, some beans, a few eggplants (plants still looking good but not flowering much), cucumbers, a few zucchinis (they have been through a lot and I’m surprised some are still alive), cauliflower, hopefully sweet corn (if it stops raining and lightninging), watermelons for the delivery shares and a few odds and ends.
We also have JamShare, and FlowerShare (hopefully).
That is all for now. Send in your questions so there is something to write about. Otherwise I’ll have to fill you in on the details of how we harvest okra (it is not exciting). And here is this week’s joke of the week. If you send in your jokes you could be selected as a future joker of the week!
Son: “Dad, do trees poop?’
Dad: “Of course son. Where do you think number 2 pencils come from?”