D&V Organics Week 13 CSA
We hope everyone fared okay with all the crazy weather last week. As mentioned in last week's newsletter, we would prefer no rain, because with rain comes certain difficulties on the farm in terms of managing erosion and plant diseases. The tropical storm that passed through on Tuesday brought some steady, but slower rain over the course of the day, which didn't prove too difficult to manage or to work outside accomplishing our weekly harvest tasks. Despite the rain, we were even able to get a half acre of cauliflower and broccoli planted by Thursday. Friday's storm was completely unexpected, and quite possibly the most intensely sustained and destructive we've seen in our tenure on our farm. Luckily all of our employees were headed home by the time the storm rolled in at 5:30. Although Friday's the storm only lasted a couple of hours, it did rain over 5 inches in that time, causing a significant amount of erosion not only to the driveways and parking areas of the farm, but also washing a lot of soil out of the fields. As farmers, we work hard to maintain good quality soil in order to grow healthy crops in the short term and long term. It's definitely hard to see muddy water running out of the field and down the street, because that's really our fields washing away. We do have some good systems in place to minimize the rapid movement of water on our slightly sloped farm, but we are realizing that we need to continue to find creative solutions moving forward.
This week, we'll have a few new peppers and some tomatoes to add to our harvest list, among them are the following, which deserve a little description:
- Poblano, Peppers - traditionally the Chilé Rellenos pepper, or when dried referred to as Ancho Chilé
- Serrano, Peppers- oftentimes at least twice as hot as Jalapeños, great in salsas and used fresh
- Jalapeño, Peppers- blocky and great for stuffing or using raw in salsa
- Biquinho, Peppers- aka Brazilian birds beak peppers, sweet and citrus like, very very mild, use in salads or pickled
- Paste Tomato- best used for cooking, pulpy and sweet with a nice balance of acidity
Enjoy,
Derek & Vicky
