Farm Happenings for July 13, 2024

It has rained twice in the past week! We are grateful. We've also gotten a few moments of break from the heat. It's AMAZING to see how quickly the plants respond to real rain and mild temperatures. The Kale plants rebounded last week due to the weather, and lettuces perked up. We irrigate (a lot!) but real rain is different. 

Tomato plants need nighttime temperatures at a certain low enough temperature in order to set fruit. When it stays too warm at night, tomato plants don't make new fruits. Ideally they want it lower than 70 degrees and definitely lower than 75 degrees. Weather patterns like this one make it hard for tomato plants to make actual tomatoes! 

Tomato, Eggplant, Pepper, Onion, Basil, and Garlic harvests are now in full swing! Dice it all up, stir it up, maybe saute it up, and add olive oil, vinegar, and salt. The picture above is our quasi-Panzanella Salad before tossing with toasted cubes of our bread. We like chunks of mozzarella in ours. Improvise to your liking!

We're also harvesting fruit here! We don't grow much fruit, but our Watermelons are starting to ripen up and we'll harvest them over the next 2 weeks or so, with hopefully another round ripening in August. AND we currently have an amazing break from giant European hornets devouring our Asian Pears and we have more than our family can eat so we're harvesting them for some lucky Farm Share members. We don't have boatloads, but we've got 15 quarts or so and we've made them available here in Harvie. The fruits are small but tasty! They are delicious firm like an apple or softer 

Need to check on or make changes to your pick up dates? Log in here. 

More recipe suggestions: 

- Roast big chunks of Tomato, Eggplant, Pepper, and Squash. Serve on pasta with a roasted-vegetable sauce of your choice. 

- Slice Summer Squash and Eggplant (any variety!) into long strips, 1/4 inch thick. Marinate in just olive oil if you're in a hurry. Add minced garlic and balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper if you have more time. Grill to perfection!

- Roast Eggplant and make Roasted Eggplant Dip a la Cava and make at-home Cava bowls. Apparently folks on TikTok show you how to do that here. 

- Carrot Top Pesto can be made with Basil or without Basil. Give it a try!

- Kale Pasta Sauce can be made with any kind of Kale, not just Toscano as called for in that recipe link. And if you've maxed out your NYT Cooking recipe views, here's a link to a delicious non-NYT option: Kale Pasta Sauce. It's so easy. Just blend Kale with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic. 

- Pizza with Roasted Pepper Sauce is extra yummy and requires a little more time because you need to roast the peppers. But it's worth it!

- Lettuce Wraps save us many a night during our busy summer. Load them up with tofu salad, chicken salad, egg salad, you name it...

Bread Share members: You get a SEPARATE email to customize your bread share.  

To Customize Your Share: 
Each time you are scheduled to have a share, you'll receive an email from us 2 days prior. It should have subject line "Time to Customize Your Share." The software will create a default share for you (based on your indicated preferences and what we have available to harvest) and list those default contents in the email. The email also contains a link saying "Want to make changes to your share or add extras?" Click on that link to customize your share! Customization usually ends at 6am on the day before your pick up day, and sometimes at 5am when our harvest days need to start extra early. 

For Pick Up:

EGGS: Ring-a-Bell Farm in Pamplin offers their eggs for sale through us. Their chickens live on pasture and are fed supplemental non-gmo feed from Sunrise Farms. Their eggs are fabulous and we trust their farming practices completely. You can purchase their eggs in our self-serve FarmStand at our farm and you can order them through the Harvie system "Extras" when they are available.