It's not fall yet, but summer grows old, and its as if nature is not exactly rushing to get things done while there is still time, but is moving toward the next cycle without dalliance or delay. The above picture of milkweed says it all- leaves yellowing and dropping as the plant puts all its attention into maturing its seeds. A few pods are drying and will open soon, spreading their fluffy optimism all over the farm. Probably I "shouldn't" let them go to seed, since they do wind up as a weed in the production fields (This one pictured is in the orchard), but what's the point of being on a farm (or alive on earth, for that matter) if I can't have monarch butterflies flitting about my head half the day? (the other half of the day I have gnats flitting about my head, but you've got to take the bad with the good, I guess).
New this week are 20th Century Asian pears, which for some reason this software refuses to upload a picture of. How vexing! What I wanted to show you was that they are small-- about the size of a ping pong ball-- and therefore better for eating out of hand than processing, and green with a few spots on them. We'll have more Asian pears in the weeks to come.
A few people have commented that some of the produce this year (most notably cucumbers, but some others as well) have more soil on them than in years past, and were wondering the reason for it. It's a long story, but the upshot is that last fall I decided to stop using plastic mulch in the fields as a weed suppression measure, what with the oceans filling up with plastic waste, killing bird and fish, and more and more plastic "microfibres" entering the soil, water and air-- and then our bodies-- every year, and how old do I have to be before I can stop doing things I hate? When? When is this going to happen? Now, I decided. I haven't hooked up the plastic layer since. The downside (in addition to some weed issues) is that now, when it rains, the raindrops hit soil, not plastic, and the soil splashes onto the produce. We don't feel like washing 600 cucumbers a week by hand, nor do I want to spend thousands of dollars on a washing line we would use but infrequently, and would be way oversized for our farm. I do understand that people expect their produce to be reasonably clean, and I don't think this is unreasonable, but I'm not sure how to solve this dilemma. Any ideas? I'm not going back to using plastic, that's for sure.
I sure am confused about the shishito peppers-- all of them, not just the ones I have mixed up with the pepperoncini- are slightly to moderately hot. Whether it has to do with growing conditions, changes in the seed cultivar, or something else, I have no idea. The heat isn't severe-- even I can eat them without too much discomfort (though not without resorting to a spoonful of yogurt now and then) and I hope you will eat a lot of them in the weeks to come, since there is a good crop coming on.
Cook them like this.
Bye for now!
John
