A few announcements then a bunch of words about the farm.
We have a couple of farming opportunities for members this week. On Wednesday, September 6th we will be processing the onions and shallots. This involves sitting on a chair — though I suppose you could stand as well — and rubbing the outside skin and dirt off the onion then placing the onion in a bin. For the really ambitious members there could be counting involved as well! We’ll start at 10:00 and go until the last person leaves. This project is in anticipation of the next opportunity: winter squash harvesting.
Friday, September 8th — weather permitting — we will start the process of harvesting the winter squash, pumpkins and gourds. It is a time consuming process where many hands make light work. Not all the work is laborious but there is bending, cutting and carrying squash. One squash at a time is pretty light so don’t fear that you are unable to help! We’ll start that project at 10:00 as well. Let me know if you can make it to either or both of these wonderful opportunities!
We are still taking back the cherry tomato pint containers — just the pint size plastic clamshells. We reuse them for future cherry tomatoes.
We are still looking for help.
Farm News
I suppose this would be a good opportunity to update everyone on the status of the many crops we are growing. With this week’s hot weather, many of the crops that were nearing their end have decided this is the time to say goodbye. Now for some of the crops it will be the Minnesota long goodbye, which could take several weeks, but it is goodbye nonetheless. One of the first to say goodbye, and perhaps in a non-traditional Minnesota goodbye are the summer squash and zucchini. I guess if we consider they’ve been making their way to the door for a few weeks now so we could consider this the end of the long goodbye. In any case, this will be their last week. It was a good run I must say and they will be missed.
Sweet corn is also at its end. There are a few cobs left from last week but none left in the field. Sweet corn will also be missed.
Not sure if anyone noticed but last week was the last week for cauliflower. I think it knew about the upcoming heat wave and just said, “Nah.” It was a challenging year for cauliflower.
We are at the end of the watermelons for the most part. It has been a tough year for watermelons mainly due to deer and crows. Solving those two problems will continue to be challenging.
Some of the crops that have been gone for awhile include, but are not limited to, kohlrabi, fennel, and bok choy, cantaloupes, honeydews and head lettuce. Speaking of lettuce, the salad mix will most likely be done after this week. Lettuce does not like heat and as everyone who works outside knows, we had some heat these last few days. We’ll keep an eye on it and decide if it is worth keeping around.
Other crops that are slowing down include cucumbers, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and eggplants. I suppose that is a good thing given the amount of tomatoes we’ve been getting lately.
A lot of the flowers have said, “sayonara.” Some of the others like zinnias keep going. But they will also come to and end at some point. We’ll keep making the bouquets but the assortment will be far more limited.
Now on to crops that are ramping up. First and foremost is okra. It has been a challenging year for okra mainly because the deer keep eating it. Hard to grow when some creatures keep gnawing on you. But it appears the deer have moved on to other things and the okra has finally found the weather it likes. But, like all weather in Minnesota, its favorite weather will soon draw to a close and okra will be on the decline as well. Until then lets enjoy the okra we get!
Also ramping up is our fall broccoli — as long as it survives this heat wave. One experiment we tried this fall was to plant five different varieties of broccoli to see which does the best. What we’ve learned over the many years of growing broccoli is that success depends on matching the right broccoli to the season’s growing conditions. It is that simple. The tough part is knowing what this season’s growing conditions will be. So I’m thinking from now on we just grow every type of broccoli we have every time we plant it and expect half or more will fail and the rest will give us good broccoli.
Cabbages are ramping up, though unlike tomatoes we can limit their harvest as needed. Radishes — ramping up. We have a new Daikon radish to go with our usual Daikon radish this year. It is smaller and mauver. Is that a word? Maybe I should go with more mauve. We’ll start harvesting these sometime soon.
Winter squash will be arriving sometime in the next week or two. It all depends on when we find the time to harvest it. Same with the pie pumpkins. Peppers ramped up last week and will continue this week. They had the deer treatment early on in their lives but have somewhat recovered but not fully. We should be seeing peppers until the frost kills them.
Potatoes are ramping up mainly because with other crops ramping down we will have time to harvest them. Same with the carrots. Both of these crops are crops we don’t have to harvest so we can spread the out as necessary. Napa cabbage on the other hand is more of a have to harvest crop. We’ve seen some disease on quite a few of them so I’m not sure how many we’ll end up getting.
Some crops still to come — Brussels sprouts, popcorn, and leeks. Crops that we store and hand out over time — onions and garlic (and soon to be winter squash).
And finally the crops we have no idea how they will do — green beans. Green beans have been a favorite of the deer this year so the tops of all the plants are gone. This has been the case all year, which is why you haven’t seen as many beans as we’ve had in the past. The last planting of beans is now flowering so hopefully we get one more flush of beans. We’ve also planted a spicy fall salad mix and a separate planting of arugula. We’ll see what the deer leave behind. Maybe they’ll just stick with the bean plants.
I’m sure I missed a few of the crops we grow. But this gives you an idea of where we are and gives me something to write about.
What will we have this week?
We’ll have tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, some tomatillos, peppers, some eggplants, some salad mix, okra, some broccoli, cabbage, carrots, some cucumbers, a few zucchini, onions, garlic, a few beans, the last of the corn, and of course the things I’ve forgotten.
It is also an EggShare week and a FlowerShare week.
Joke of the Week
What do you get when you drop a pumpkin?
Squash!
That’s all for now. Let me know if you can make it to one of this week’s special events! Or of course feel free to contact me with questions, comments, jokes, etc.