Three weeks left in the 2013 season.
Renewals for next season – as well as new memberships – are going quite well. Thank you for your confidence and business. We appreciate the support! If you haven’t signed up yet please do as soon as you feel you can commit. It helps us with our planning, recruiting, and funds to purchase supplies for next year. If your contact information hasn’t changed you only need to send in a $100 deposit. Otherwise for new members please fill out the order form.
Just a reminder that we offer a $25 credit for referring new members to our farm. Just have them indicate on their order form they heard about us from you. We will credit your account. For 2014 we’ve already had three new members join from existing members’ referrals. Thank you!
We need more volunteers for the garlic planting this Saturday. The current forecast calls for partly cloudy skies with highs in the 60s. Sounds like perfect garlic planting weather. Please RSVP ASAP. Planting starts at 2:00 and goes until we are done. Then we’ll have a bonfire and potluck dinner. We could use some more hands.
We started handing out WinterStorageShares. We are giving them out as we get various parts assembled. We started with the onions and shallots on Friday. The winter squash, potatoes and garlic will follow shortly. We will send them out to the drop sites so make sure you look for extra boxes if you ordered WinterStorageShare.
With only three weeks left we’ve planned out the rest of the season as far as what we will harvest when. We still have a lot of things out here in the field. Without having any killing frosts yet we still have a few of the summer veggies producing – in particular the peppers. We have somewhere around 3000 peppers currently in our walk-in cooler. What does that translate to for our members? CoupleShares get eight peppers each week for the next two weeks. FamilyShares get 12 peppers each week. Get your pepper cookbook out! Of course this is unexpected since by now we usually have a killing frost, and frequently a number of killing freezes. But let us enjoy it as payback for such a late start to summer.
What else will we have this week? In no particular order: kale, cabbage, leeks, celery, potatoes, a few tomatoes, beets, cauliflower, fennel, Napa cabbage, rutabagas, carrots, spicy salad mix, kohlrabi, onions, garlic, broccoli and squash.
Speaking of broccoli, which will be running out this week, I want to apologize to anyone who received extra cabbage caterpillars in their broccoli last week. We had an invasion of them that we noticed right before the rains came. Once it started raining there was nothing we could do about it. We usually use bt, which is an organic pesticide, but the rain would have washed it off so spraying it would have been pointless. We also soak the broccoli for a few hours which kills many of them but apparently some escaped our processes. Hopefully we didn’t freak out too many of our members. In the future it is best to soak the broccoli prior to preparing to try to get the rest of them out. This is true of cauliflower as well.
The field tomatoes are pretty much done for the season. The hoop house tomatoes are still going but they are slowing down as the amount of sunlight decreases. I don’t expect to get loads of tomatoes anymore this season – and perhaps not even a few per week. Hopefully everyone has had their fill of tomatoes.
On the bright side the eggplants are pretty much done for the year! We had quite the run of eggplants this season. Sorry about that or your welcome, whichever you prefer.
Are we growing too much fennel? Seems like it isn’t very popular. We will limit it next season unless I hear cries for more. Try fennel frond pesto. It is delicious!
Volunteer opportunity! This week’s forecast calls for perfect weather to call in sick to work. We will be harvesting potatoes, carrots and a whole bunch of other things. If you want to enjoy some of the last few beautiful days of the fall come on out and lend a hand.
Eggs and Apples are still available. See the last few newsletters for more information.
No FruitShare, EggShare, CheeseShare, or SalmonShare this week. FlowerShare gets a whole bunch of gourds. MeatShare came on Friday. Pick up your share if you haven’t already. CoffeeShare comes on Monday.
That is all for now. Feel free to send in questions, concerns, etc.