Weather or not we're ready...
The drought is over. We aren't flooded, but everything has been muddy and wet for over a week now. This has kept us in out of the heat, which is nice, but it's bad for a lot of the plants. The outdoor tomatoes are succumbing to bacterial and fungal diseases because their leaves have been constantly wet and warm for 10 days straight. This sort of weather pattern reminds us why we love the high tunnels. Even completely low-tech unheated tunnels help a ton because the leaves of tomato plants in there remain dry and mostly unscathed by these foliar diseases. Organic outdoor tomatoes on a commercial scale are really tough here in Missouri. That's why most farmers (including many at farmers markets) spray chemical fungicides to protect their crops. We don't do that, so we end up loosing the bulk of our outdoor tomatoes just when they are yielding well.
Long story short, stock up on bulk tomatoes, especially damaged ones because there are a lot of slightly sun scalded, cracked, and spotted tomatoes out there that are salvageable for salsas, tomato sauces, etc, but this might be the last week for those bulk boxes because we'll probably only be left with the high tunnel tomatoes after this week. It's a little sad for us seeing all those beautiful ripening tomatoes out there hanging on to very sick looking plants; Cut short in the prime of life because of weather conditions and disease. Watching our efforts go to waste yet again makes me want to do what I do every year....build another high tunnel! Preparing to put together an order for parts next week so we can have another one built before next season. The goal will be to have ALL the tomatoes under cover next year.
The good news is, peppers don't seem to mind all the wet leaves, and they're looking gorgeous! They're loaded with big green peppers just waiting for the sun. Once the sun comes out again, they'll be ripening up like crazy. Sweet Italians are amazing and we're upping the quantities this week. Hot peppers are basically unlimited as well right now (besides the poblanos which are taking a break between fruit flushes).
We are looking for some sun so we can get out there and cultivate all the fall carrots, beets, broccolini, green beans, daikon radishes. We need several consecutive days without rain so we can hoe those rows and keep them clean of weeds. Two weeks ago we were praying for rain, and now we're praying it will stop. God must wonder why we can't make up our minds.
CSA Overwhelm?
If you are new to the CSA you may have already experienced it--CSA overwhelm. Do you feel like the X-wing pilots approaching the death star with TIE fighters baring down on them? "Here come the vegetables. They're coming in too fast!"
It's natural to wonder what to do. Your fridge is like a ticking time bomb with produce going bad before you can use it, or your next share comes in and you lose track of FIFO (first in, first out) so you keep using the new stuff and forget about the old stuff until you finally dig back to the recesses of the crisper drawer to find a bag of liquified lettuce mix from probably week 2 of the season. Gross! If only our paychecks were like our vegetables. Too much money at the end of the month rather than too much month at the end of the money!
Well, I just want to encourage you, that it happens to all of us. We find scientific experiments in our fridge as well when we get behind. It's not a sin to throw something out because you couldn't get to it. The thing is, this farm keeps producing week after week and we donate thousands and thousands of pounds of produce every year to local food banks (20,000 lbs last year and we're likely to surpass it this year). You don't need to feel like you "wasted" those veggies because your membership dues go toward helping our farm buy the seeds and pay the people and repair the van so we can be here to donate all those other veggies that didn't go to waste. So don't be too concerned about food waste because we're here donating as much of our extra crops as possible. We plant extra and harvest extra to donate each week, PLUS, if you get behind and want to bless others, (for all pickup locations besides Brookside) simply don't pick up your share one week and we'll automatically add your share to our weekly farm donations. That's a way to get caught up with the fridge AND bless others in need. (In order for this to happen for those of you who pick up in Brookside, just move your share in Harvie to Friday self serve on the farm, and it will stay in the cooler for Tuesday morning donation day).
Also, I'd love it if some of you veterans could share your strategies for catching up on veggies when you get behind. Please share on the Private CSA page for others to get ideas for mass storage events, selecting longer-term storage veggies in your share to catch a breather, meal prep in advance? What do you do? I'm sure we could all learn a thing or two.
Mistakes in packing or quality problems
To err is human, to forgive divine. We make mistakes. Most of you have already picked up on that. We really want to get you exactly what you ordered each week and to get you good quality produce as well. Sometimes, the leaves are a little more bug-chewed than others and we can't guarantee perfect looking produce (that's for sure), but if you find something that is a real quality problem, we want to know about it. For instance this week, someone told me about a kohlrabi with mushy parts inside. We need to know about these issues so we can be on the lookout for hidden problems or to till in rather than harvest a whole bed of crops if they've gone bad. So letting us know about problems is a service to us and to other members who might not be so gracious with us. We try to approach constructive criticism with humility and an effort to make things right, so let us know if we messed up you're packing. Were you missing something? Did we pack green onions rather than green beans because in the packing process we saw "green" and didn't think to check which green thing we should be packing? Just reply to any of the Harvie emails like this one and let me know about the issue and I'll do my best to get back to you ASAP to clear things up. Please understand it's our intention to serve you well, and we don't want our mistakes to reflect poorly upon your impression of your farmers. We try to have your best interests at heart and we'll do what it take to make things right.
Bread and Cheese
Farm to Market 100% Whole Wheat Sliced Loaf
Hemme Brothers Fresh Mozzarella (7 day shelf life, or freeze)
Praying for some cool, sunny, rainless days!
Dave and Sheri
