First of all I want to thank everyone who left their car windows open Sunday night. The resulting rain has done wonders for the crops. Without this much needed rain I would be hauling irrigation equipment around the farm instead of writing this newsletter. So there is plenty of blame to go around for your having to read this. Now please shut your windows for this evening. It looks like we could get more rain than we need.
We are entering week eight of the 2013 season. Seems like this season is moving along pretty fast. It made me reflect on how we compare to last season. Last year at this time we were on week nine. That is one more than this season. So how do I compare the two seasons? Do I compare week eights that happen to fall in different calendar weeks or do I look at the same calendar week? Both ways can point out the differences between the two seasons.
For this discussion, let’s just compare the two calendar weeks – July 31, 2012 with July 30, 2013. In reading last season’s newsletter I mentioned we were finished harvesting the garlic. This season we haven’t even started. Looking at the garlic today I estimate we will get started later this week and hopefully finish it by early next. As is tradition here at Fresh Earth Farms, we always, always, always have rain the week we are ready to harvest garlic. Another surprising fact about garlic at Fresh Earth Farms: our garlic is never, ever ready for the Minnesota Garlic Fest, which happens this weekend. I’m not sure why we are so far behind the rest of Minnesota but that is just the way it is. It does give us a great excuse to have to miss the festival year after year.
The second thing I mentioned in last season’s newsletter was the tomatoes are starting to ramp up. This season we are slowly approaching the ramp. Maybe we have nudged the ramp a little bit, but we certainly aren’t accelerating up the ramp. The hoop house has been providing us with a few nice tomatoes these last few weeks. I wish we had the funds to enclose more of the farm in these structures. Makes for a much earlier harvest, though it adds significant work if it moves to a new location during a storm.
The third thing I mentioned in last week’s newsletter from last year is we were just starting to harvest the tomatillos. This season we’ve harvested a few already. So surprisingly the tomatillos are maybe a bit ahead of last season’s incredibly early start.
The fourth thing from the 2012 season was that the eggplants continue to produce this week. No different this season. The eggplants were going strong last week and I don’t see them slowing down this week either. The variety we plant tends to have a significant flush of eggplants then drops to none before it has another reasonable flush later in the season – if the weather cooperates.
Another item from last season was how poor the broccoli season was. Seems like the trend continued this season but the reason is completely different. Last season we had an incredibly early spring. Then it went from rainy to extremely hot in a short period of time. This was not good broccoli growing weather. Broccoli likes a long, cool period. Think of a perfect fall where it never frosts but it doesn’t get very hot either; that is perfect broccoli weather. So last season was terrible broccoli weather.
This season our spring didn’t start until mid-May. This precluded us from planting the first round of broccoli. For whatever reason, the second planting of broccoli never grew up. I postulate it was due to the heavy rain washing a lot of the nutrients down the hill, which explains why the fennel at the bottom of the hill is doing so nicely. Now the third planting of broccoli, the one we rarely count on and frequently get little from since it matures during the heat of the summer (late July, early August), is doing quite well. We plant this broccoli in case the summer is cool and the warm season crops are slow to grow. This year the bet is paying off. Over the next several weeks we should be getting some nice broccoli.
The sweet corn from this season seems to be on track with the sweet corn from last season.
We were harvesting “the last of the fennel” at this time last season. Never fear, this season we still have a LOT of fennel!
Last season we were harvesting cabbage and cauliflower in July. This season we will start harvesting a lot of the cabbage this week. The cauliflower hasn’t even started to head-up yet so I have no idea when that will be ready.
A couple positive differences for this season: We are still harvesting the chard. We have beets still in the field and will be harvesting these off and on for a few more weeks. Carrots have been much more abundant this season than last season. We still have kohlrabi. The bulbing onions look great and we should be harvesting them shortly. The fall crops look wonderful. If we continue to have nice weather (cool but not cold) we should have some great fall broccoli, unlike last year.
One last thing I should mention about this season: We try to do is be consistent over the course of the harvest week (Wednesday to the following Monday). We try to make sure that each pick-up day has the same choices/options as the other pick-up days. We also try to ensure that each delivery box is filled the same no matter which day it is delivered. In the past it seemed we managed this quite well. This season it has been more of a struggle. That’s not to say anyone has been cheated. On the contrary, we go out of our way to try to make groupings as equitable as possible. But what has been unique this season is how often we’ve had to mix up the groupings of vegetables (on-farm pickup folks understand this since they see the groupings when they pick up their produce. Drop site folks may not understand what I am talking about) from one day to the next. These changes are due to how the plants are producing.
For example, this past week on Wednesday we had some corn and tomatoes but a lot of beans. We also had few broccolis. So we combined tomatoes, corn and broccoli (along with cucumbers) into one grouping so that we had enough to fulfill Wednesday’s shares. We had a lot of beans so they stood on their own. By Monday we had far fewer beans, a lot more corn and a fair increase in the tomatoes. At the same time the beans dropped off dramatically. So we had to move the tomatoes and broccoli into the bean grouping and kept the corn with the cucumbers. Each day had the same number of groupings and the groupings were equivalent but they were different. This is yet one more of the challenges this season has provided.
So what can we count on for this coming week? Well, there will be cabbage, eggplant, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, fennel, kohlrabi, broccoli, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, onions (I think we will be digging the cippolini onions this week!), beans, potatoes (hopefully, never sure until we actually start digging them), maybe some hot peppers, maybe chard (if it doesn’t need a week off to grow some more), maybe kale (if it doesn’t need a week off to grow some more), and sweet corn (still the small, early variety though the second, larger variety is getting close).
FruitShare this week. Plan to pick-up your fruit at your usual place and time.
ShroomShare this week! We still have a few more ShroomShares if anyone would like to add locally grown, certified organic oyster mushrooms.
MeatShare for those who haven’t picked up their MeatShare yet.
CheeseShare and EggShare this week!
FlowerShare is still going strong.
CoffeeShare arrives on Monday.
No SalmonShare.
Ice Cream this week for those who ordered it. Please ask when you pick up your shares.
Don’t forget to RSVP for the First Annual Fresh Earth Farms Fall Film Fest to be held on Saturday, September 7th. Potato digging starts at 2:00. Potluck dinner at 5:00. Film fest and bonfire starts at dusk (around 7:30). This is THE event of the fall farm fashion season. Overalls not required. Also, send in links to fun, interesting, etc. videos you have made or found. Must be less than six minutes in length and appropriate for viewing by children. Come for all of the festivities, or just a part of them. But please let us know if you will be attending.