Howdy all! The farm is bursting with bounty right now. We're seeing the first dry farm tomatoes turning pink and even picked a few cherry tomatoes. The melons are sizing up, and the first variety of apples was ripe enough that Monday's wind knocked a bunch to the ground, so we'll be doing our first picking tomorrow. I dipped my toes last week into HARVIE's new unified inventory feature. It's promising for allowing us an online store for what we have beyond the CSA in a much more user friendly format, but it was also much more difficult for me to update and navigate, so this week we'll be won't be using it. Not sure if anyone noticed, but if you did, that's what was happening. Since we have so much produce this month's featured beans will only be available in the swap-able items. I've decided not to put the beans into the boxes this week. So look for them in extras and for swapping.
FEATURED BEANS:
Phipp's Pebble Beans- Our neighbor Tom Phipps, who has since passed away, developed these lovely beans which he named because they look like beach pebbles. Although it looks like a mix of many varieties, when planted all the plants look the same and mature at about the same time. They also cook evenly. We decided to keep growing them in honor of Tom, who although untrained, was a brilliant breeder and farmer in his own right always experimenting and improving his varieties based on his decades of observation and instincts. Our seed breeder friend, Steve Peters, says that this is a what is referred to as a "stable population". If we were to continue to plant without intervention they would all likely end up the same, but as long as we keep selecting this mix to keep it diverse we should be able to maintain it.
King City Pink- A lovely creamy bean that is super versatile. Makes great baked beans, refried beans, nice just stewed. This bean is another very rare variety that we are hoping to help preserve. It's fame? It has a brief mention as the bean being traded by Cal in East of Eden.
