Apprentice Kirstin Yoder with the first of our sweet potatoes!
This week's offerings: As you can see in the picture, we now have some sweet potatoes to share with you! Also first-time appearances include butternut squash, mini bok choi, and, at least since spring, arugula. This is the very last week where basil is available, available as an extra this week. Tomatoes winding down, and we are ripping out the vines to make greenhouse space for winter crops. It seemed that the deer had eaten the green bean plants, but the plants rebounded well, and the deer seemed to be off elsewhere, so we got a new crop of green beans. Lots of colored peppers still! Lots of other items available for swapping or ordering!
Here is 2nd apprentice Erica Heinig doing a final raking of a greenhouse before seeding spinach and arugula, which should be ready in November or December:
Coming soon: celery, garlic, gold potatoes, delicata squash, more spinach and arugula, red/purple carrots one more time. Lots more cauliflower coming too!
On the farm: We start to fill up our storage rooms with crops that we can keep through the fall and winter -- here is Hannah, our Packing Manager, looking for some cabbage!
We came very close to a frost the other night. The first killing frost usually occurs in late September, so we are about on schedule for that! We lose several crops with the first hard frost, including peppers, eggplant, basil, melons, watermelons. Often the foliage may protect the crop for the first couple freezes, but eventually the colder temperatures find the susceptible leaves, or fruit, and eventually succumb to the cold. Other crops that are a little hardier can do fine, and will continue to grow through October.
Have a good week!
Peter & Bernadette and crew
