The tomatoes in the hoop house were starting to get a bit unruly so we needed to instill some discipline yesterday. The story follows these all important messages.
We are still taking VeggieShare orders. I am wonderfully surprised at the number of recent sales many of which were referrals! But we aren’t done yet. We are 85% of the way to our goal so please keep spreading the word. And if you are reading this and haven’t signed up yet please do soon before we run out of shares!
We are also still taking orders for most everything else like fruit, cheese, meat, eggs, ice cream, coffee, flowers, and winter share. SalmonShare deadline is May 15th. MeatShare deadline is May 31st.
Here is the paragraph from the last newsletter where I mention we are looking for help: We are still looking for someone to work here this season. Since it is the same job as last season I will just link to last season’s job posting. Preference will be given to applicants who can commit to the whole season (May through October) and can work normal business hours (7:30 am to 3:30 pm M-F). However if you can’t commit to these requests please still apply since we haven’t found anyone yet who can.
The Potato Planting Party was a great success! Sorry you all couldn’t make it.
Please pay for your shares in a timely manner! If you don’t know whether you owe money please contact me and I will fill you in. We don’t customarily send out invoices. That would be too 20th century.
Herb plants will be ready to pick-up on Monday May 15th. We’ll have them sitting in the normal pick-up area. You can grab them at your convenience (on or after May 15th). They will be labeled with your name.
Now back to the story.
Over the years we’ve tried many different different ways to grow tomatoes. Tomatoes are one of the most difficult veggies for us to grow. They are very susceptible to diseases. They tend to be gangly and out of control. They are not frost tolerant at all. The stems can’t hold up the fruit. They don’t store well nor ship well. All-in-all just a terrible veggie to grow — but also one of the most popular! Who doesn’t like tomatoes? Actually there are a few of you out there, which reminds me of a story from very early in our farm’s existence.
One day during on-farm pick-up I noticed a couple skipping over the tomatoes when they were grabbing their veggies. I asked them, “Why are you not taking your tomatoes?” They replied, “We hate tomatoes. We hate them enough that whenever we eat in a restaurant we ask that they not be added to our meals.” My reply went something like, “Well, you’ve never tried these tomatoes. You might as well take them and give them a try. You already paid for them!” They were skeptical but to stop me from pestering them they took their tomatoes — probably somewhere around six pounds of tomatoes. The next week when they returned I asked them if they liked the tomatoes. They responded, “Not only did we like them but we ate all of them the first night!” Of course the moral of the story is if you don’t like tomatoes hope that when you first try ours you don’t have six pounds to consume in one night.
But back to our original story. After trying various ways to keep tomatoes from getting diseased we’ve resorted to caging and housing them. No more free-range tomatoes. They just get into too much trouble when allowed to roam freely. Earlier this Spring we planted the tomatoes in the hoop house. We also laid landscape fabric to keep the weeds down and drip tape for irrigation.This week we are surrounding them with cages. All of this effort takes a considerable amount of time. But after a good soaking rain we had the night before this was the perfect time for us to get this project started. Nothing like a bit of indoor farming to get the sweat going.
As always, do not hesitate to send in your questions, comments suggestions, jokes, etc. And don’t hesitate to give the tomatoes a try once we start harvesting them later this summer.