Welcome to week 10 of the Farm Share – out of 20. This is our most abundant week yet, with lots of fun extras like bulk tomato seconds, bulk pickling cucumbers, giant zucchinis and garlic braids, so make sure to customize your share by Tuesday night!
On The Farm
We are so grateful that we got a week to rest our minds and bodies up north. It was such a gift. Now, we are heading into the latter half of our season, as this week marks the mid point of our 20 week farm share. We came home to see the fields flourishing with vegetables. The second cucumber and zucchini planting are ready, the peppers are ripening, eggplants are plenty, the new kale is flourishing, there are 100s of lbs of tomatoes in the greenhouse, beautiful head lettuce is ready, and so much more. Of course, with the rain a lot of weeds seemed to come to life as well! So the work is far, far from over. We will be working hard this week to get some of our final fall plantings into the ground (choy, kohlrabi, beets, and more)! Then, we’ll be tackling the weeds. But fortunately we are coming back with renewed energy! Now that we know leaving the farm IS possible, we’ll definitely be working this into our schedule next year too.
Veggie Highlights
We are feeling really good about this halfway point in the season, with lots of quantity and variety available. Tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, zucchini and cucumber are available in large amounts. We have some gorgeous head lettuce. We have beans, the first of the season’s peppers, jalapenos and cayenne chili peppers, and pretty purple eggplants. There is basil, parsley, mint, sage, and oregano available to swap into your share. We have some fun extra options as well: bulk pickling cucumbers, tomato seconds (our tomatoes have been VERY cracky this year, and sometimes they get a bit too cracky and ripe before we can pick them, so we are selling some seconds in 5lb bulk amounts, great for processing – see tip below), and big 2lb zucchinis for all your baking and stuffing needs. We are also starting to sell our garlic braids, which are very popular year after year and make awesomely unique gifts.
Processing Tip: Tomatoes
This time of year we are so busy that it’s hard to find time to process veggies, but we really want to preserve our food for the winter. We have learned a quick and easy way to freeze tomatoes that I’ll share here:
*Roughly chop tomatoes
*Put them on a baking sheet, toss with some oil and salt (add basil and garlic cloves if you’d like, or any other herbs)
* Roast them in the oven until they’re soft and falling apart
* Freeze as is! You can also put them through an emulsion blender before freezing if you want. Either way, they can be taken out of the freezer in the winter and used for sauce or as a replacement for canned tomatoes.
Thanks everyone for being with us on this journey. We hope you have enjoyed your time with us this far and we hope to give you a second half of the season that is full of flavour and abundance!
Your farmer, Kim
