This time of year on the farm, we hardly have any time to do anything except harvest. There's barely any open ground on the farm, as fields are either planted in a cover crop (like this beautiful flowering buckwheat field, just buzzing with pollinators!) or veggies. We spend the majority of our days now picking green beans, sweet corn, broccoli, and carrots from the fields in addition to the tomatoes, cukes, and peppers from the hoop houses. And yes, you read that correctly - SWEET CORN is finally ready! We expect to have it available for the next 4 weeks at least, hopefully longer if cold weather holds off.
Believe it or not, we're only about 4 weeks away from our typical first fall frost. The first frost at our farm is usually on the full moon in September, but this year that moon is really early in the month, on September 4th. I bet we'll get our first fall frost on the next full moon - October 2 - instead. Laugh if you will, but I still check the moon cycle to help me guess when that first frost is going to come. I have gotten frosted out too many times on those clear, bright, full moon nights, so I keep an eye on them now.
Until then, we've got plenty of harvesting to keep up with, as well as some projects to tackle before cold weather settles in. You can see in the picture above that the plastic on our heated greenhouse (where we start all of our transplants in the spring, and where we dry down our garlic and onion crops in the summer and fall) was nearly torn off in a big storm a few weeks ago. We'll be replacing that poly in the next few weeks, so that greenhouse will be sturdy and sound before the snow flies. We also still have to find time to build the new hoophouse that arrived earlier this summer. The projects seem endless!
In preparation for the coming seasonal change, we took down half of our cucumber planting yesterday to make room for more fall spinach, as you can see in the picture above. I know, it seems crazy to be thinking about fall spinach now - it's only August! We've already got 3 beds of fall spinach planted, and will be seeding many more beds in the coming weeks. After Sept 15, our day length drops dramatically, and crops begin to grow much more slowly. The spinach that we'll plant this weekend in those renovated cucumber beds will take about 60 days to mature for harvest, so it won't be ready until at least Oct 15. As farmers, we can't help but have one foot in the "now" and one foot in the next season in order to stay ahead of the curve. Always planning, because timing is critical. Savor those cukes while you can!
Next year, with the additional space in the new still-to-be-constructed hoophouse , we will be able to get a second planting of cucumbers in for the late season (to harvest mid August until the first freeze) to help continue the cucumber season longer. We're also planning to grow a few beds of pole beans in the extra hoophouse space. They are a longer bean than the short bush beans that we grow now, but are still nice and tender. Plus they grow plenty tall, which my knees and back will appreciate while picking! Speaking of beans:
While they may have spoiled many weekend plans, the recent rains were a welcome drink for the crops. Last weekend we got over 3" of rain, which made harvest work a little muddier than usual earlier this week. Here's what we looked like on Monday after picking the green beans that were in your boxes on Weds or Thurs this week. You can see that my bin is not very full - I was only picking for short while before I think my pants and shoes weighed more than that bin of beans did. Thank goodness for rain pants. Another nice perk of growing pole beans in the protected hoophouse is that it will never be muddy under there!
As the harvest season for field crops begins to really take off, I wanted to let you know that we'll be offering a few more bulk vegetable offerings for you to choose with your CSA boxes. Starting this week, we'll have 10# boxes of organic broccoli, 10# boxes of organic green beans, and we'll keep offering the 5# bags of organic slicing tomatoes, great for soups or fresh salsa.
Freezing crops like broccoli or green beans is a really easy way to capture the bounty of summer to enjoy all winter long. We freeze about 40# of broccoli for our family of 5 (it's one of our favorite "green" winter veggies), and it's a pretty simple process. I fill a pot with about 1-2" of water and bring it to a boil. While it's heating up, I chop all the broccoli into chunks. Once the water is boiling, add the broccoli, cover the pot, and set your timer for 1 min 30 seconds to 2 minutes (closer to the 2 mins for larger batches, 1.5 mins for smaller amounts of just a few pounds). You'll know it's ready to take out when the broccoli turns bright green, but is still pretty firm. Drain the broccoli and immediately put it in a large pot filled with cold water to halt the cooking process. Otherwise, if it cooks too much now it will be mushy when you reheat it in the winter, and NOBODY likes mushy broccoli! Then bag in quart ziplocks and freeze- that's it.
If you don't get any veggies put away for winter now, don't despair. You will be able to add frozen veggies into your CSA boxes this winter! When she's not making jams and jellies (or managing this CSA!), Karra has been freezing up some broccoli and beans in the processing kitchen at the Bayfield Apple Company. We'll keep you supplied with great produce one way or another!
Until next week, be well and enjoy this summer while you can!
In community -
Farmer Chris
Great Oak Farm
