Welcome to week 12 of the Farm Share!
It is WATERMELON season on the farm and now is the time to indulge. Lots of goodies this week, including half bushels of roma tomatoes from Common Ground Farm! Yes, it’s nearing the end of August and it’s canning time. Make sure to log into your account to make the most of your share. And don't forget to return your green bag!
On the Farm
Late August is an enjoyable time on the farm. So many vegetables to eat. The cicadas lull you to sleep as you lay down beneath the willow tree and feast on the blue sky…. Ok, maybe not the sleep part. There is still lots to do, but more harvesting now than planting. We’ll be getting fennel into the ground this week, and our final succession of kale and chard, some turnips and radish. Our fall brassicas are almost all planted, and looking happy.
In two weeks we’ll have to say goodbye to our summer help as Dean, Breckin, and Tristan go back to school. It will be a very different feel without their lively selves running around getting stuff done!
We were very fortunate to be able to host the team at Urban Roots London last Friday. Urban Roots is a non-profit organic farm that grows on a few locations in the city. The crew came out for a half day to see our farm and help us with some tasks. With 10 people, we weeded our extremely weedy carrot beds in the course of a couple hours – something that would have taken us a whole day. They really saved our carrots! They stayed for lunch and brought us some traditional corn soup prepared by a friend from the Oneida Nation. We felt lucky to have the help, the company, and the food.
We had a meeting today to discuss our Fall Farm Share, which we feel good about happening this year! This will be the first year running it – it will be a 6-week share beginning the last week of October (with one week break between our main share and the fall share). We’re going to have 30 spots available, to keep it manageable for our first season. Sign up will open in September!
Veggie Highlights
Have I mentioned WATERMELON? It’s a pretty exciting time for a vegetable farm when we get to harvest FRUIT! You can find us these days chomping on watermelon in the packhouse between tasks. This week we have a dark green-skinned watermelon and the yellow-skinned Faerie watermelon. We have also brought in some cantaloupe and honeydew from our friends at Common Ground Farm. Melons take up a lot of space in the field and are started in the greenhouse in May and put into the ground Mid-May. By the time August rolls around, we have been waiting a very long time for them! They are one of those labour-of-love crops, because we are on such a small scale that we can’t grow too many of them. We tend to have only enough for our members and the store. So when they are here, we really take time to enjoy them. And we hope you will too!
From Common Ground Farm, we also have yellow-fleshed potatoes (as well as the usual red), and tomatillos.
Cucumber Half Bushels
We have tons of pickling cucumbers and are selling half bushels! Tell your friends!
Roma Half Bushels
We are excited to be able to bring in some half bushels of roma canning tomatoes from Common Ground Farm. They’ll probably be available for the next few weeks as well.
Enjoy your veggies this week!
Your farmer,
Kim
