Pictured above: Our new bean thresher! Most bean combines and threshers are built for a massive scale and are extremely costly and not really scale appropriate, but this little beauty is just our size. Our good friend and neighbor Ryan Casey of Blue House Farm managed to import 2 of these from the manufacturer in Turkey. They're built to be standing threshers for all sorts of beans and grains and are used widely across Africa... and Pescadero, CA. ;) We have yet to try it, but we're starting to pull up the 2022 crop so pretty soon she'll have her maiden threshing. We're crossing our fingers that this will be a game changer for labor and maybe even allow us to entertain growing a few grains again.
CROP UPDATES:
It's all we can do to stay afloat in the sea of tomatoes, melons, apples, and peppers that are pouring into the pack out. So much plentitude!! Onions are being pulled to further cure this week (these will be the storage onions that will take us through the Winter if we're lucky). The next big planting of potatoes is awaiting harvest as we've filled up all our storage space. Peppers and tomatoes are picking up steam and more and more apples are filling the fruit cooler.
We've heard some complaints about strawberries... Here's the scoop. Strawberries always get smaller at this time of year, after months of heavy production. Not only are they smaller (and hecka sweet), but with the dry heat all and months in the ground, all sorts of pests tend to peak this time of year. Spotted Wing Drysophila are little fruit flies that like to oviposit their eggs inside the berries. They are particularly attracted to sweet, ripe fruit. Our team is doing the best they can to cull out damage, but often the entry point is not visible to the naked eye. A few days later the egg hatches and the little larvae eats the berry from the inside out. That damage is what you see when suddenly good berries just cave into a soupy mess. We're also seeing an uptick in dust mites (two spot spider mite) that causes the plants and fruit to turn hard and tart. They thrive in dry dusty conditions. We've cut off wholesale and are prioritizing what berries we have for the CSA, but expect available numbers to drop and know that we are doing our best to cull and send you the best that there is, but strawberry season is winding down.
You may have noticed that baby arugula and other baby greens haven't been available the last couple weeks. We're being hit hard by little tiny beetles called flea beetles. They also are super happy at this time of year. They get under our floating row cover and turn the baby greens into swiss cheese (little tiny holes everywhere). We're trying to get floating row cover over the beds earlier, but they beat us to the last 4 rounds of arugula and baby kale. Still plenty of spinach luckily, which they don't like.
COMING UP:
We're starting to offer a couple more apple varieties that we are just starting to harvest. Peppers are starting to ripen, and we have a couple more weeks of those delicious melons hopefully. GREEN BEANS!! there are so many green beans. Hopefully next week we're going to have Happy Girl Kitchen put up a bunch of dilly beans for the cold Fall and Winter months. Our Spring planted artichokes are just starting to take off as well.
