Movin' to the countryGonna eat a lot of peppersMovin' to the countryGonna eat me a lot of peppers
Now is the time to enjoy sweet Italian peppers. If you haven't tried them yet, I don't know where you've been. They're the most amazing snack and they're amazing cooked as well. We've been making stuffed Italian peppers, Ratatouille, sliced raw peppers with hummus, whole raw peppers for lunch snacks, etc. These red and yellow gems are absolutely amazing. Probably our favorite vegetable. Soooo, we planted a whole bunch of them and now we are seeing them ripen all over the farm on all the thousands of plants that we've planted. So, don't hold back, doulble-tripple-quadruouple up on them if you think you can eat them. Even if you can't eat them, you can freeze them to use later. Just halve them or slice them to take up less space and stick in a freezer bag to use in cooked dishes during the winter.
The outdoor tomatoes are dying down, but the tomatoes in the high tunnels are still producing well. I think we'll still be able to offer some bulk boxes this week. There's still a lot, maybe we're past the peak, but we're not hurting for tomatoes, so please enjoy.
Zucchini is Here
Yellow zucchini are starting to produce this week. You might wonder a couple things. 1) why yellow? and 2) why are these just now starting to produce? Both are for the same reason. Bug prevention. First, we grow a particular zucchini variety that happens to be yellow because in organic growing field trials, this variety is the least desirable for the dreaded cucumber beetle which is the bane of cucumber and squash plants. The cucumber beetles still attack them but not as voraciously as most varieties. The delay is because we plant many many weeks after the weather would have allowed us to plant because we are attempting to avoid certain insect rushes in spring (cucumber beetle and squash bugs). We've found that if we start early in spring with squash and successively plant several plantings to extend the squash season, pretty quickly the bug population that thrives on this family of plants will establish itself and multiply greatly making later plantings over run and destroyed by pests. By waiting, we don't give these bugs a home on the farm to multiply and then sneak in a couple of plantings to supply us with squash in late summer and into fall. Again, if we were spraying with chemical pesticides, this wouldn't be an issue, but we are committed to growing without chemicals. So, the best we can do is provide healthy chemical-free squash for a limited time and also limited in variety.
Plus, the yellow colored zucchini are way easier to see when you are picking! If you've ever grown zucchini, you know that you have to pick every day and if you don't notice a perfectly-sized zucchini one day, the next day it will be oversized and if you miss it two days in a row, it will be a giant boat on the 3rd day. That happens to us less often with the bright yellow fruits. Use them like any zucchini. Just know they aren't yellow squashes, they are zucchini, just yellow ones. And yes zucchini is a kind of squash so I guess you'd have to say they are yellow squashes but technically that's something slightly different.
Bread and Cheese
Farm to Market French Farm Artisan Loaf
Hemme Brothers Chive cheese curds
Have a great week!
Dave and Sheri
