New this Week: Batavian Lettuce, Sweet Peppers (limited), Tomatillo (limited), Cortland Yellow Onions, and Clarion River Organics' Astound Cantaloupes!
This Week at the Farm:
We (all of us here at CVO, including dogs and plants) breathed a collective sigh of relief this past week as we had more moderate summer time temps with less humidity. It's amazing how much we can get done when it's not 100% humidity and 95 degrees!
Weeding. Weeding. And, a little more weeding. That really sums up our activities this past week at the farm. We are getting all of our recent plantings in tip, top shape to keep producing well into fall. We are also doing some maintenance on our heirloom tomato areas, and doing ground prep for all the fall crops to be planted in the coming weeks. The first up to plant will be more head lettuce, beets, kale, scallions, broccoli, turnips, and arugula. We'll be planting fall crops for another 5 weeks or so, until about the second or third week in September.
As many of you know, we grow over 200 varieties of specialty cut flowers on the farm, which we sell to florists, at the Sewickley Farmers Market, and through farm share. We thought we would share one of our favorites this week - Lisianthus. These beauties are growing happily in our high tunnel and love the heat of summer. Lisianthus bunches are available this week in the Extras.
Still no rain at the farm this past week so we need everyone to start doing those rain dances again. Maybe it will rain this coming week?
Farm Partner Feature: Conover Organic Farm
Conover Organic Farm, located just down the street from us, in Langeloth, PA, is owned and operated by Jeff and Diana Conover. Jeff is a 14th generation farmer - his family has been farming American soil since 1624.
His family’s first farm was in present day Manhattan, and in 1636 Jeff’s ancestor moved to and became the first white settler on Long Island, owning 15,000 acres of what is present day Brooklyn. In the late 1600’s, one of the sons left Brooklyn and began a farm in central New Jersey, which continued to be worked by the Conover family until the 1960’s when Jeff’s father graduated college and moved to the big city of Pittsburgh. Jeff spent much of his childhood at his grandparent’s farm, learning organic farming practices. After spending 25 years as an executive in the corporate world, Jeff rekindled his love for fresh, wholesome veggies and returned to the “family business." You can learn more about the Conover's story at https://www.conoverfarm.com.
You can purchase Conover's Dill Pickles, Carolina Reaper Hot Sauce, and Dilly Beans in the Extras, and have these products included with your farm share. A little about the products...
Conover's handmade, small batch artisan pickles are made using only the finest ingredients in their on-farm USDA certified commercial kitchen. Customers often tell us that these are the best pickles they have ever eaten - they are so crispy! And for those of you that like spicy, try the Carolina Reaper Hot Sauce, made with the Carolina Reaper pepper, which is the world's hottest pepper with a Scoville rating of 2,000,000 units. Or, try the dilly beans - Emily, one of our veggie growers, eats them like candy!
If you have any questions, please reach out to jodi@cherryvalleyorganics.com or to support@harvie.farm at any time. Thank you for being a farm share member this season!
Jodi, Emily, Annie, Allie, Heather, Bo, Meghan, Nicole, Nicole, and Vanessa
The CVO Team
