Whoa! How about this weather roller coaster? Felt like downright late November much of last week, but it looks like we'll jump back up into the 70s next week. We did some basic preparation early last Monday-Wednesday, expecting a possible frost last Wednesday, but it only got down to 36°, so crops look fine. And we're thankful to have what look to be a few weeks of good growing weather the rest of this month.
Winter squash is now all out of the field and in the greenhouse curing, a process which helps heal scratches incurred during harvest handling. It was a tedious process, since each fruit needed to be inspected for hail damage after we got the fruits off the vines. We sorted them as either #1 (no or negligible hail damage), #2 (some hail damaged, but healed and not weeping), or #3 (farmer food). There was quite a bit of variability across varieties and fields, with some plantings having as high as 80% hail damage, and others less than 20%. Either way, our goal is to dole out these #2 hail damaged fruits in shares over the next month or so, saving our undamaged squash for later fall and early winter shares. This means you shouldn't put your squash in a cabinet and forget about it for a couple months. I would recommend eating them this week or next to be safe. Some of the hail dings might penetrate a few millimeters into the squash and require a couple extra passes with the peeler. Thanks for your understanding regarding the need to utilize some of this hail damaged produce.
We're starting to feel that pivot to fall with this week's addition of winter squash, but still clinging to summer with tomatoes and watermelon. I suspect the next few boxes will have this mix of summer and falls crops, typical of September.
What's coming up in the next two weeks? Several new items! We're excited about nice-looking plantings of arugula and radishes that should be showing up in next week's shares. We should also have a new planting of salad mix sizing up, some bunched beets, our last succession of fennel bulbs, plus one last flush of mint. Spinach will need another two weeks at least, but it's on its way.
Friday marked the last day of work for Godfrey Agaba, who will spend the next two weeks of travelling in Minnesota before heading back to Uganda (by way of Tanzania, since Uganda's borders are still closed). We are thankful for Godfrey as well as Michael Kyeyune for joining our crew last-minute when the pandemic led to the suspension of new visas for the three ladies we had planned to have on our crew through MAST International. We wish them both safe travels home and good fortune with their next endeavors!
We have had a few members request more information about the hot sauces and salsas we offer as extras each week. I wish we could have more of a description along with each product, but Harvie currently doesn't provide a way for us to do that. If you are interested, I would suggest visiting the websites of the makers:
We carry the most products from Double Take Salsa, including a new Scotch Bonnet Mustard: https://www.doubletakesalsa.com/store
Plus Cry Baby Craig's one-and-only, Habanero Garlic hot sauce: http://www.crybabycraigs.com/about-cbc
And kimchi at three spice levels from You Betcha Kimchi: https://www.youbetchakimchi.com/
Remember, these are all Twin Cities-based companies that use our peppers to make their products. And they've all been very flexible about buying hail damaged peppers over the last month, so we are grateful for them and want to support them any way we can!
Notes on items in this week's shares
- Butternut and delicata winter squash are #2 grade with some hail damage, described above. We typically cure butternut for a couple weeks before eating, as it gets a bit sweeter over time. But we don't feel we have that option since the damaged fruits are more vulnerable to degradation. I harvested a couple butternuts two weeks ago and roasted them up - they were delicious! And made a soup out of another big butternut last night with great success. Delicatas are always good to eat from harvest onward.
- This week, we are sending out the last of the watermelon. They'll be a similar small/medium size like last week.
- The red potatoes haven't been harvested yet, but the samples we dug up looked nice. This variety is great for boiling and mashing or cubing for salads. They're also good for making fries and chips, but not as good for baking as golds.
- Red onions, like the rest of our onion crop, are small this year since the plants were taken out very early by a voracious population of thrips. They're probably 1/3 of the size we've gotten the last four years.
Have a nice week!
Dana
