A note about add-ons: Flowers, eggs, herb shares, and culture shares are only for those who are scheduled to pick them up that week. Check your label. If it lists your add-ons, go ahead and pick them up. If it does not, please do not take them. If something seems amiss, please contact us.
The longest day of the year is a bittersweet milestone. We LOVE these long days that start with a gorgeous dawn at a little after 5:00 (giving us all some daylight time to ourselves before we start the workday) and darkness after 9 PM. In the old days, we used to work most of those hours but nowadays we are better organized. We have learned to get our work done during the most hospitable parts of the day and we rarely work until dark anymore.
With the summer solstice comes a change for the onion family. Onions are oriented toward growing during the lengthening days and they stop getting larger when the days get shorter. This is also the time when we start to harvest the garlic (which looks glorious this year). It's a busy time for alliums.
Usually by now we have planted all the sweet potatoes but it was such a chilly spring that the plants from our grower in Southern Maryland are still not quite ready. We did plant a few pitiful plants that came in the mail from North Carolina--they came out of the box looking like sticks, with no leaves or roots. But they were from a reputable sweet potato grower so we decided they would probably grow even if they looked like they were dead. Less than a week after we put those brown stems in the ground they are already growing tiny new leaves.
The beets that we planted at the beginning of April (they looked pretty sorry for themselves back then too, after getting nipped by frost) are now beautiful and vibrant and plentiful. The lettuce is out of control. The squash plants are standing up over three feet tall. Everything looks glorious on both farms. The plants love this weather, as erratic as it is.
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