Welcome New Members . . to our fall farm share season. You will enjoy the summer crops as we reach the end of summer and welcome the flavors of fall. We begin to welcome back some greens, winter squash, sweet potatoes, roots like beets and carrots and more!
This Week in Your Box …..
Carrots: The long, sweet Napoli carrots are back in 1 lb bunches.
Peppers: Green bell peppers, mild Shishito and hot jalapenos are offered separately this week again.
Additionally, the Red Ember Peppers are ready for harvest. The Red Ember pepper has tremendous flavor on the first bite, with warm heat that lingers. It’s thick enough for a bit of crunch when eaten fresh, but thin enough to dry easily. Just enough heat to satisfy "pepper heads" — who can eat the peppers whole — but mild enough to slice thinly onto a salad. Makes excellent powder, flakes, and hot sauce. Also nice fried or in stir fries. It's a cayenne pepper.
Cucumbers (Mixed): A mixed 2-3 lb. quantity of Armenian, lemon and green Marketmore cucumbers. Fortunately, the rain followed by a week of warm weather will extend this crop another week or two.
Summer Squash (Mixed): Summer Squash production will slow over the next few weeks until it stops producing. This week you can order a mixture of zucchini, yellow crookneck and scallop squash in 1 b quantities. Generally a pound is 2-3 small squash.
Basil: Bouquets of 6 stems are just right for sandwiches and salads this week. If you have extra, try drying it in the oven or dehydrator and save it for winter.
Strawberries: Order by the pint this week. Hopefully the warm weather will extend production for a few more weeks.
Cantaloupe: The Sweet Granite and Hearts of Gold cantaloupe canteloupes surprise me with a few more ripening each day. The sweet granite has a paler flesh and is perfect for making smoothies.
Potatoes: Both white Kennebec and Norland Red varieties are available by the pound.
Onions: Yellow Walla Walla large bulb onions.
Shallots: Matador and Conservor shallots are wonderful single meal sized with a sweet and milder flavor than traditional yellow onions.
Swiss chard: This week the swiss chard comes from Pistil Farm while mine takes a break from hard pruning over the last couple weeks. Pistil Farm is another local organic farm who primarily sells cut flower bouquets.
Beets: The Red Ace beets are simply divine fresh or canned. I like them pickled best myself.
Extras:
1. Eggs
2. Garlic Basil Pesto: 8 oz container made with garlic scapes, basil and cashews. I have frozen it so give it a stir when you get it home.
3. Soothing Salve for your skin – my own recipe for dry, chapped hands
4. Dried Pepper Flakes made from my own mixture of dried Poblano, red and green bell, hot padrone and paprika peppers
5. Dried Basil
What’s Happening on the Farm?
I hope you enjoyed the rain this last week. All the dust was washed off the plants in the field and the air smells fresh again. As fall arrives, there is much to do.
The black beans and Orca beans are now all drying on screens inside the farm stand. I was short a few screen doors so my neighbor generously removed all his window screens so I could use them to dry beans. I love my neighbors!
While harvesting continues, I have begun planting crops to winter over. Red and Green lettuces were planted just prior to the rains which was perfect timing.
I have started cutting the daughters off the strawberry mother plants and propagating them in the greenhouse for the winter. Daughters are what you call the plants that grow from the strawberry runners. They will root over the next six months and then I’ll plant them in April or May to expand the strawberry field.
A couple volunteers helped me with an asparagus bed makeover. We removed the wire covering, removed all the weeds, gathered the red seed berries and sprinkled them around to plant more asparagus for next year. After amending the beds with a layer of soil, we replaced the cover and voila! It’s simply beautiful again! Thank you LDS Sisters!
Before placing the strawberry daughters in the greenhouse, I sanitized all the shelving to remove any pathogens that commonly grow in greenhouse environments during spring and summer. This gives any new seedlings the cleanest environment possible. I also leveled the greenhouse (it’s sitting on a hill) and put in a pea gravel floor to eliminate the weeds. I’m also taking down pop up tents and shade covers used during summer and storing it all away for winter.
I purchased too much pea gravel so now I’ve started a new nursery area for next year. This will be a shaded space with a pea gravel floor where seedlings are hardened off before planting in the field. I’ve needed this space badly for a couple years but didn’t have the time or resources to do it. So I’m happy to finally be working on this project. Perhaps I can have more seedlings for sale next year as a result.
I had a few inconvenient interruptions in my week, as do we all I’m sure. The wind storm blew the yellow sticky pest control cards all over the property and completely destroyed the shade tent I provide for the chickens all summer. It lasted through the winter so I suppose I should be thankful it endured a year of weather.
I also overloaded my truck with pea gravel and learned a hard lesson about how dangerous driving can be when overloaded. I creeped my way home from the rock yard at 25 mph the whole way just to keep control of the steering. I thought my tires were going to pop. I finally got all the rock unloaded so now I can assess whether I caused damage to my truck or not.
Finally, I had a couple pit bull dogs trying to get under my fence and at my chickens for about three hours Saturday morning. Numerous attempts to reach my neighbors failed so I had to call animal control to secure them. Luckily the owners showed up just as we were loading their dogs but these things just consume my time away from planting, weeding and harvesting. Now I have to patch all the holes that the dogs dug along the fence line.
I'm happy to report all the evacuated animals housed here at the farm have been returned to their families. There are many still displaced, but the rains and cool weather was a blessing to help gain some containment over the local fires. Thank you all for your contributions. I will continue to accept donations through this Wednesday 9/30/20 and then I will begin disbursing them to families in need.
Wishing you all a super week. We have more warm weather coming! Perhaps it will ripen some more heirloom tomatoes.
Blessings,
Carrie
