Just a quick note to mark your calendars for this years GAGG. See the last couple of newsletters for more info.
Sorry for the late newsletter this week but I’m kind of glad I wasn’t able to write it until after we packed boxes and manned the pick-up tent this evening. It gave me time to think about this week’s share. In particular when we packed the boxes I was a little disappointed in the amount of stuff we put in them this week. It made me think about why and I came to an interesting revelation. Has anyone heard about this new book, “Too Much and Never Enough”? I feel this would be a great titke for a book about how to manage a Community Supported Agriculture farm. It seems like we always have too much of some things and never enough of other things. No matter how we plan the season, nature controls the results.
We figured at this point in the season we would still be knee deep in tomatoes as we were last year. We also thought the corn we planted later than usual would be coming ripe right about now instead of almost two weeks ago. At the same time, the string beans we planted for September are really coming in strong, maybe a bit too strong. We are having a hard time keeping up with the harvest! With all the student employees back at school we are down to just two of us doing all the work. I found a new employee starting next week but that doesn’t help us get all the beans harvested this week.
But looking back at this week’s delivery share: what went into this week’s box reflected a lot of work. The five most labor intensive crops we grow are beans, potatoes, edamame, carrots and cherry tomatoes. Beans, edamame and cherry tomatoes just take a long time to pick enough to give out. Potatoes and carrots take a lot of time to dig and a lot of time to wash. Three of these five were in this week’s share (no potatoes in the pick-up tent, at least until the ground dries enough for us to dig more). So the share did represent a lot of work.
The other frustrating part of this week’s share — which was true last week as well — was that the items that were not in large enough quantities to give out on their own provided enough produce to fulfill one and a half categories for the whole membership. What does this mean? Well, for a family share we give you three items from each category. These items were enough for one category but not quite enough for two categories. If we could have had a bit more of any one of these items we could have had another category and each family share could have had another three things. For example, if the tomatoes were growing the way we expected a family share could have had three pounds of tomatoes and the whole share would be more along the lines of what we planned. But alas it was not to be.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, if we had more labor we could easily give out three pounds of beans for a family share (two pounds for a couple share) — that’s how well the beans are producing right now. But do people really want three pounds of beans? Perhaps if they want to freeze or can them. But it would be a lot of bean eating to get through three pounds in a week. This week was a perfect example of Too Much and Never Enough. And don’t get me started on applying the Too Much and Never Enough when it comes to weather!
This Week’s Challenges
One of the biggest challenges lately is creating flower bouquets for FlowerShare. Much like the veggies, many of the flowers are coming to an abrupt end to their production. Some like the zinnias are still going but many of the others have decided they are done. We have around 300 gladiolas planted that haven’t flowered yet. I’m just not sure what we will put with them when they do flower. I used a lot of creativity and various plant parts for this week’s bouquets. Certainly more creativity than my pay grade allows. I hope you enjoy them!
I heard the f-word on the TV the other night. At first I thought I misheard it but no, it was the f-word. Those members who have been with us for a while know what I’m talking about. I almost don’t want to even write it out. Writing it may make it more likely to come true and none of us want that. So I’ll just say hopefully it doesn’t happen here. Looking at weather.gov the low temp forecasted for Wednesday night is 39 degrees. That is possible frost weather, I can’t believe I said it. Darn! Well, if it stays cloudy the chance of frost diminishes. Or if it is breezy it can reduce the risk. But if the forecast as written today comes to fruition we may have to take extra measures to protect frost sensitive plants on Wednesday. Cross your figures, turn the heat on in your house and open all the windows!
What will we have this week?
We have a lot of beans and if we can pick them all you will also have a lot of beans! New this week is edamame (more about edamame below)! We’ll also have onions, garlic, and peppers in sufficient quantities. In smaller to much smaller quantities we’ll have potatoes, tomatoes, tomatillos, cucumbers, carrots, eggplants, sweet corn and a few other odds and ends.
This is a FlowerShare week. No other shares this week.
Edamame
For those new to the farm, even those who have been with us just the last couple of years, you may be wondering what is edamame? The last two years our edamame failed to germinate even though we bought new seed each year. Since we farmers are insane, we tried to grow it again this year just like we did the last two years and finally we got different results! It germinated and grew. Now the deer had a few of the plants and the Japanese beetles did their thing on them. Plus it didn’t get fully weeded but the end result is a reasonable amount of edamame.
“What is edamame?” some of you may be asking. It is immature soy beans, probably like late teens early twenties soy beans. Old enough to be pretty much full size but still with good taste and not hardened by living a long, difficult life. The beans inside are tender and tasty. The outside pod is indigestible. The way you prepare them is to Google “How to cook edamame” or follow these directions. Rinse edamame. Bring a pot of well salted water to a boil. Add edamame and bring back to boil. Boil for 3-5 minutes until the pods turn bright green. Drain and serve hot or cold with or without more salt. To eat, squeeze the beans out of the pod into your mouth. Chew. Swallow. Say, “Mmm. That’s good edamame!” Repeat until done. That’s all there is to it. I’m sure you can find recipes that use edamame but it is good all by itself.
That seems like enough stuff to fill this week’s newsletter share. As always, feel free to send in any questions, comments, jokes, etc.