We increased our crew size by two last week with the addition of Sergio and Monika, who came up from Texas borderlands to work in Minnesota this summer. They're our "pepper season" reinforcements, allowing us to complete CSA harvest, wash, and pack a bit quicker early week so we can fit in our wholesale peppers harvests mid-late week. They're both new to vegetable work, but are picking it up quickly. We're glad to have them!
As we round the mid-August corner, our sights are set on the big event looming at the end of the month, when we hope to welcome a healthy baby to the world. So over the next week, I'll be working with Sarah, Haley, Justin, and the rest of the crew to make a game plan for the first half of September, when I expect I'll be fairly absent from day-to-day farm operations while Karin recovers and we spend time with the little one.
I plan to hand over some of the farm share logistics to them - including "building the share" (listing the types and amounts of each veggie available for the upcoming share in Harvie) and writing this newsletter. The crew has already become pretty autonomous with CSA harvest and packing work under Sarah and Haley's leadership, so that should stay fairly steady. We hope to make this transition as seamless as possible, and I have total confidence they'll do a great job. But thanks in advance for your patience should an unexpected hiccup arise!
Notes on select items in this week's share:
- Poblano Peppers: This is our featured item this week, and one of my favorite vegetables. Poblanos are one of the mildest "hot" peppers, and can have next to no burn if the seeds and membranes are scraped out. While there are many traditional ways to eat poblanos, such as chiles rellenos, we love just subbing them in in place of green bell peppers. They're so much more flavorful!
- Sweet Corn: Our third and final sweet corn planting looks like it'll be ready for first harvest early next week. It's a different variety than what you've seen thus far, but of the same supersweet class that you'll surely enjoy. Fairly minimal earworm presence based on early checks, so let's hope that holds next week and we won't have to trim too many ears!
- Italian Eggplant: While the plants are still quite productive, we're noticing a dip in fruit size at maturity, so have dropped the item valuation in Harvie to accommodate.
- Colored bell peppers: While ripened red, orange, and yellow bell peppers are tastier than their green predecessors, it comes at a cost - lots of things like to eat sweet peppers (insects, rodents, pathogens) and the fruits are more prone to split. Many of these peppers are just left in the field, and others end up in our freezer or the compost pile. But it can be just heartbreaking when a beautiful pepper has a small defect that disqualifies it from sale as a first, so we are trying out offering them to farm share members. These peppers might have a small amount of insect damage, a tiny soft spot, or mild sunscald causing a one side of the pepper to become less firm and a bit wrinkled. We're valuing these roughly half the usual price of colored bell peppers and you'll have to take action to swap them into your share.
- Tomatoes: We're at peak season, for sure. Get 'em while they're great! We have a good amount of heirloom, red slicing, and cherry/grape tomatoes available this week.
- Mint and Parsley: Could be a good week for tabbouleh with these herbs plus tomatoes and onions that are available this week!
What's coming up in boxes 13 and 14? We'll see the next succession of salad mix along with the first fall planting of spinach, plus dill and cilantro. We also hope to pick some cantaloupe and baby fennel. Broccoli should re-join the rotation mid-September.
Have a great week-
Dana and the crew
