I heard that Facebook has determined people stay on their platform when they are fed information that makes them angry. I guess rage is a great motivator. My hope is that this newsletter really pisses you off so you stick around for more vegetables!
We are still taking orders for next season. Reserve your share of both veggies and outrage by joining for the 2022 season. For existing members all you need to do is send/bring in a $100 deposit. New members should order through our online store. I hope all of you are angry enough to come back!
Three more weeks left in the 2021 season. If that doesn’t make you angry nothing will.
Farm News
There is so much to tell you that I don’t know where to start.
First I’d like to thank all those who came out this Saturday to help plant the garlic. Despite what the rest of the metro area might have been experiencing, our weather was perfect. Partly cloudy skies with temps in the low 70s. It didn’t start raining here until 5:00 after we called it quits for the day. We had twelve people (including me because I am also a people) but we could have used a few more. We still have about 20% of the garlic left to plant. Looks like a job for the farm crew this week.
Second, I received the results from the University of Minnesota’s Plant Diagnostic Clinic regarding the problem we are having with the vegetable which must not be named. It is a disease called sour rot that is caused by the fungus Geotrichum candidum. The plant clinic noted it as a “somewhat unusual pathogen here”. I assume by “here” they mean Minnesota. In trying to find research on how to prevent the problem in the future I came across a University of Wisconsin paper discussing a vegetable which must not be named trial in 2016 where they also had sour rot. In the paper it mentions the UW plant diagnostic clinic had never seen this problem before in cucurbits. Being on the forefront of an emerging disease is not a good place to be.
The fungus is found in soils around the world and since we farm here on earth we have it in our soils as well. So trying to rid the farm of this fungus would not work. Another paper I found talks about sour rot in sweet potatoes. It mentions the problem occurs when the environmental conditions are right: hot, wet and low oxygen. Well we had hot and wet in August. I didn’t feel our oxygen was all that low but my guess is if the soil is waterlogged, say from 18 inches of rain, the oxygen level in the soil could be low, which would complete the trifecta of sour rot conditions. It looks like I have my work cut out for me trying to find a solution for sour rot (some sort of oxygenator?). Seems like a great winter project.
Third, this season has been strange (have I told you that yet?) The weather continues to be warm. I don’t see any cold nights in the immediate forecast. This illustrates why CSA farming works. It follows the Even Steven principle. For every failure there is a success. We lose the vegetable that shall not be named yet due to the warm fall weather we are harvesting eggplant like it was mid summer: 41 last Friday and another 90 on Monday. Even Steven. The broccoli was horrible this Spring yet the fall broccoli looks great, tastes great and is great. It started ramping up last week and continues this week (last week went to the delivery share, this week it goes to on-farm pick-up shares). Even Steven. And we are just starting to get fall cauliflower, something we try just about every year but rarely succeed. Oops, seems like we are a bit heavy on the plus side! Let’s throw the less than ideal corn in there to balance it out. Again, Even Steven.
Then there are the sweet potatoes. We dug around one of the sweet potatoes vines last Friday and found no sweet potatoes. What? The vines look great. It was hot this summer. We gave them plenty of water. I thought this would be a banner year for sweet potatoes. But apparently not. (Too much oxygen?) Of course this was just one plant so there may be large, tuberous roots under some other plants but it was disappointing nonetheless. Then again, the Brussels sprouts are the tallest we’ve ever grown. Even Steven. The ornamental pumpkins for FlowerShare died along with the vegetable that shall not be named but with no frost the flower bouquets continue. Even Steven.
I’m sure if I keep thinking of this past season I’d find other examples (like small onions but prolific potatoes) but I’m sure you get the idea (bad spring radishes but great daikon radishes). The CSA model works because of the Even Steven principle (late Spring frost, no fall frost so far). We may never have a banner year for every veggie and if we did everyone would be overwhelmed with veggies and not rejoin the next season. But we always seem to have a range of the good, the bad and the ugly so that the sum of the parts makes everyone whole, and just a little bit angry.
What will we have this week?
Where do I begin? I’ll go from east to west this week. We will have potatoes, onions, some Napa cabbage, very few cauliflower, some kohlrabi, broccoli, peppers, a bit of okra, lots of eggplants, some tomatillos, some tomatoes, some cherry tomatoes, a few beets, some daikon radishes, some watermelon radishes, some arugula, hot peppers, some cabbages, some kale, and some chard. We’ll also have some herbs of various types.
We have more flowers for FlowerShare. The flowers are slowing down so the bouquets continue to get smaller but they are still beautiful! We will also send out more items for the WinterShares. If you ordered WinterShare please look for your items at your delivery location.
No fruit, eggs, coffee, mushroom or jam this week. JamShare is over since you received both September and October jam last week. One last coffee, egg and fruit coming up this month. I believe there are two mushrooms left, which should be the last two weeks of the season.
This week’s joke:
What do vegetarian zombies crave?
Grains
As always, feel free to send in questions, comments, jokes (especially if you want better jokes than this week’s joke) or brain teasers. We can always use more words to fill up the newsletter.