Crop and Farm Update
We’re finally hitting peak summer with the arrival of abundant tomatoes and lots and lots of sun. We are seeing cantaloupes and watermelons sizing up, and expect to see some fruits start to ripen next week. It’s now an all-out sprint to keep up with harvest, particularly those (cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini) that can overmature if not picked 4-5 days per week.
In order to use this sunshine and heat for growth, plants also need adequate water - and that’s been a big concern around here recently. It has been a week of missed rains and irrigation woes. I’ll spare you the blow-by-blow drama, but suffice it to say we are desperately dry here on the farm, having not received more than a few tenths since the 6” rainfall three weeks ago. Storm systems that seemed certain to dump some water on us last Saturday and Tuesday both missed our farm.
Recent irrigation investments we made that should have helped us through this mini drought have been unfortunately unusable due to a defective component - we have been waiting on the replacement parts for over a week now. In the meantime, we reverted to our old irrigation system that just doesn’t allow us to use the high volumes of water we need to keep all the crops happy during hot and dry weather. Fingers crossed that the Saturday evening rain chance proves true.
We did get our garlic harvested last Monday, so that’s currently drying in the greenhouse. We may start to harvest onions in a week or two, which is earlier than usual. Our onion crop has been ravaged by thrips (tiny pest insect) and we have tried to control them with a couple different strategies, including organic insecticides, but our efforts seem to have hardly helped. As a result, plants are maturing and drying down before reaching optimal bulb size. Expect to see small and medium sized onions in the coming months, rather than the 4” onions we have typically grown.
Crew Bios
Our postharvest manager, Sarah Lang, suggested we start including some crew bios in these newsletters, and she has written up the first two for this week:
The first incoming crew members to arrive this spring were Rachel and Travis. This dynamic duo moved here from North Carolina to be closer to the snow. In their free time, they enjoy recreating in nature, including cross-country skiing, hiking, camping, and mountain biking. They’re both talented cooks; lately, they’ve taken to grilling farm veggies from zucchini to garlic scapes and fairytale eggplant (it really is the BEST splashed in EVOO, sprinkled with a little salt and pepper, and lightly charred).
Rachel has been farming off and on for over a decade, and ran her own small farm in North Carolina for three years. Her role this season at Sogn Valley is managing the crew in the field, from harvesting to weeding, trellising, grounds upkeep and beyond. When asked that quintessential farmer question, “What’s your favorite veggie?” she says watermelon.
Travis is our Farm Handyperson, and works behind the scenes to keep the farm running. It’s no small task! We’ve kept him busy with carpentry, electrical, and mechanic tasks, as well as tractor work when he can squeeze it in. In his free time he enjoys reading math books and is planning to go to grad school within the next few years for math. Favorite veggie? Okra!
Tomato Variety Guide
As we are entering tomato season, we wanted to give some information about the varieties you’ll see in your box. You can easily find photos of these by searching the web. Note that we will sometimes pack tomatoes that are a bit underripe - this will give you a succession of use over the course of the week. Eat the ripe ones first, the less ripe (firmer, lighter color) ones later.
Heirloom Tomatoes
Judge the ripeness of this type of tomato by its softness, not by its color (some are ripe when green). These tomatoes have delicate skin and need to be eaten sooner than our other types. Eat cracked tomatoes first.
Pink Berkeley Tie Dye: Red with green stripes. Sweet, rich tomato flavor. Juicy! This is an open-pollinated variety that grows and tastes just like heirlooms, although is not technically an heirloom since it was developed more recently.
Damsel: Ripe when pink. Sweet and acid is balanced in this juicy tomato. This variety is not a true heirloom, but is a “deadringer” for Brandywine.
Green Zebra: Light tomato flavor with citrus notes. Ripe when green.
Cherokee Purple: Maroon with green shoulders. Very dense texture with lots of juice. Robust tomato flavor with smokey notes.
Black Prince: Dark red, sometimes with darker shoulders. More compact in size than Cherokee Purple. Rich, sweet flavor and very juicy.
Valencia: Uniform orange color. Like other yellow or orange tomatoes, this variety is lower in acid and sweeter in flavor. It’s a little meatier than other heirlooms.
Copia: Yellow with tie-dye red splashes on the blossom end. Sweet, tangy, light flavor. Great for sandwiches.
Slicing Tomatoes
We grow a few different varieties of this type of tomato - Caiman, Arbason, BHN-589, Galahad. They tend to be uniform in shape and look like grocery store tomatoes. However, since we harvest tomatoes when ripe (or nearly so), they will have a lot more flavor than their grocery store counterparts. These tomatoes tend to store longer than heirlooms because they have thicker skin.
Sauce/Paste Tomatoes
These types of tomatoes take the longest to reach maturity; look for them starting in August. They are meatier and have less moisture than other tomatoes and are great for making tomato sauce and salsa.
Cherry Tomatoes
Sungold: Small in size and orange in color, these cherries are packed full of very sweet flavor.
Sakura: This is our red variety. It has slightly tougher skin than our other varieties, and will keep a little longer because of that.
Black Cherry: Maroon with green shoulders, these tomatoes are smokey in flavor.
Notes on items in this week's shares
- Carrots will be bunched - the tops are packed with nutrients and have plenty of uses that mellow out their bitter flavor, such as carrot top pesto. Sugars develop in carrots during cool weather, so summer carrots aren't as sweet as fall carrots. Plenty of great carrot flavor, though!
- Broccoli - same notes as last week. Some heads are a little "lumpy" and nonuniform in shape, a common characteristic of broccoli maturing in very hot weather.
- Zucchini - we do appear to be reaching a lull in production, so likely less in shares the next couple weeks. We always have no problem eating 1-2 fruits each when grilling. Just slice them into spears, coat in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and grill until lightly charred. Seriously, I could eat two pounds by myself in one sitting. Zucchini crust pizza is also a fun way to use them.
- Kale - the plants have now outgrown the row cover we used to protect from flea beetles in the spring, so it has been removed. While flea beetle populations have been lower the last couple weeks than they were back in May and June, there's a bit of pinhole damage on some of the kale leaves. As usual, shouldn't impact eating quality.
- Basil - I know this has shown up a lot in shares recently. If you need a break - swap it out. If you like to make and freeze basil pesto, now's a great time! We have 1# bags of basil available as an extra this week.
Results of the plastic/compostable bag survey
About 1/3 of members responded to the survey. Of those, 65% requested sticking with the plastic bags we have been using. Given the caveats we presented with compostable bags (in particular quality issues with extended storage of greens in compostable bags), we were looking for a pretty strong majority of members supporting the change in order to switch over. Because most respondents prefer not to switch to compostable bags, we will continue to use plastic bags. We will always try to avoid bagging individual items if we think they will "play well" with other share items packed loose the box. We will also use paper bags when possible.
Have a great week (and do your rain dance for us),
Dana
