We had a really fun week this past week spending time with Sheri's brother and family visiting from out of town and celebrating her parent's recent move to Blue Springs from Rolla. We worked half days and took half days off to spend time with them. We had a couple of our employees hold down the fort and make sure all the harvesting got done for CSA deliveries, but taking time off in the peak of the season does make us get behind on non-essential but very important tasks like pruning and trellising and mowing and weed-eating. It was totally worth it, but it will take a week or two of extra hard working to catch back up. That will be important because part of the tasks will be getting prepped for the fall transplanting of broccolini and cabbage as well as some extra large seedings of carrots and beets for fall storage and soon after that all of the daikon radish, watermelon radish and fall zucchini plantings. Things are getting busy around here for sure!
Tomato Time
The first of the outdoor planted tomatoes are starting to ripen. I think there should be enough tomatoes for everyone to get at least a pound or two this week. We'll switch the default amount to 2 lb bags of tomatoes this week to make sure to get more into your hands and probably the following week or two we'll have 20 lb boxes of tomatoes available as an add-on item. The tomatoes really do come all of a sudden and we don't want to get behind on harvesting them. Unlike the store bought tomatoes, these aren't picked green and then kept for weeks before being gassed to turn red. We pick them red off the vine and they need to make it to your home shortly after picking, so it's always a bit of a challenge to neither under, nor over estimate the following week's harvest.
Honey is Here!
Yes, Honey from our farm is now available for purchase. We hope to have more with a second harvest in late summer but we can't count on that. It all depends upon how much it rains and how many flowers bloom. Now is the time to stock up just in case.
Aronia Berries?
Yes, these are from our farm. You may have seen them lining the driveway at the farm. They are a native berry that look like blueberries but they don't taste like them, much more astringent and sour flavor but they're actually higher in antioxdents and more of a superfood than blueberries even if they aren't quite as tasty. Sheri makes amazing aronia peach jam and aronia syrup every year. Why do we grow them and not blueberries (the blueberries were from another farmer) because, being native, they're way easier to grow than blueberries and we don't have time to care for the berry bushes, just harvest when they are available. These aren't really a "farmed" item in our minds. We did plant the native bushes to provide habitat and food for wildlife and they share some of the fruit with us. You are welcome to purchase some if you'd like to try them.
Bread and Cheese
Farm to Market Rosemary Olive Oil Bread
Hemme Brothers Quark Jar
Have a wonderful week,
Dave and Sheri
