Summer loving happened so fast...
Is summer blazing past you? Before you know it, summer will be behind us, but we've still got some sizzling summer days ahead of us and some amazing summer crops. But we're already getting ready to plant for fall. The propagation greenhouse is full of our fall crops ready to go out into the field and we've seeded an abundance of fall carrots already.
But the real question you are asking yourself is: "When will the peppers be ready?" We planted a TON of peppers this year and they're looking really nice and healthy. I know it's hard to remember that far back, but do you remember that cool spring we had? Well, it delayed us in getting peppers out into the fields, so they're behind schedule, (as if we can keep a schedule for our plants). There are a lot of green peppers out there now that we may need to start picking soon. I know, I know, we all like the red and yellow ones better. Did you know that green bell peppers are just the underripe versions of the red and yellow peppers?
Well-a well-a well-a, huh
Tell me more, tell me more...
That's why they aren't as sweet and it's why they are cheaper and easier to grow. Green peppers reach full size 2 to 3 weeks before they turn to their particular color. Once a pepper ripens to red or yellow, it gets soft and is easily damaged even by the sun. Have you heard of sunscald? Peppers on the edge of the plants where there isn't as much leaf cover will very easily get a soft spot on them simply from the power of the sun. Sometime soon, we're going to need to go through and harvest a bunch of green peppers because the plants usually produce one or two peppers per plant early and ripening these fruits zaps a lot of energy form the plants, so we like to harvest those first peppers green to get the plants focussed on growing bigger, producing way more flowers and fruit and having better leaf cover to protect the fruit later in the season. So yes, you'll be getting your share of colored peppers at some point because we'll hopefully be swimming in them later on, but for starters, they'll be green.
Lettuce hope for better weather
The 10-day rain onslaught took out some of our lettuce successions and also prevented some of our plantings being on time. We'll have to take a week or two off from lettuce harvest while the next rounds grow. High summer lettuce is always a challenge, so production drops off but usually not to nothing. This will be the first week in over a year when we didn't have any lettuce to harvest. I guess all winning streaks have to come to an end. Please bear with us as we recover. Kale salad anyone? The kale is doing great out there!!!
Staying connected
Have you joined our Where the Redfearn Grows private CSA facebook group? There's a lot happening in there with recipe ideas, questions answered and last minute opportunities to help out on the farm. You can join by going here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2940994039304376 We'd love to see your there!
What does "Skip" do?
You might have noticed that Harvie made a sofware update that we hope makes life easier for you. If you are going to be out of town you can look at your "deliveries" tab in Harvie and you can skip any weeks you know you'll be gone. Each week, you can also hit the "skip" button to skip that week's delivery (You'll need to do this last minute skipping by 8:00AM Tuesday for the current week). So what does "skip" do? Skipping will pull you out of whatever week's delivery you have skipped. We won't make you a box that week (those veggies will be available to other members) and you won't be charged that week. It's that easy!
Bread and Cheese this Week
Bread: Farm to Market 8-Grain Sliced
Cheese: Hemme Brothers Fresh Mozzarella, 8 oz ball
Hope you're having a great summer so far,
Dave and Sheri
