Week 5 – CSA Share
What’s In The Box: Broccoli, Purple Kohlrabi, Garlic Scapes, Summer Squash (may include yellow, zucchini, and patty pan squash), Peas (may include snap and/or snow peas), Fennel, and Collard Greens. We may include Kale or substitute it for collards as well.
The above listing is a best guess and we reserve the right to change the items listed if we run into an unexpected issue during harvest and packaging work.
What’s Going on at the Farm:
Wow! This was a real busy week on the farm! Summer has hit fast and besides needing a week off of CSA for medical recovery it was more like a couple days off and then back to 12 hour work days. This week the broccoli seemed to have buttoned up quickly, probably from that early heat wave we had this spring. Broccoli does not appreciate heat. We harvested all our broccoli promptly and reluctantly because of the low yields from rapid heading under heat stress and iced it immediately to preserve it in the best state we can. Over 50 hours of weeding were logged this week and we transplanted celery, hot peppers, sweet peppers, ground cherries, eggplant, basil, seeded green beans and plowed in lettuce beds. Also all our strawberries for next year were weeded and flowers/ and fruit were pinched back to help the plants build for next year. On a sad note, I don’t think we will have enough strawberries for all shareholders this year. Last year was our first attempt at planting them and there are just not enough in as good of condition as we hoped. We planted around 300 plants last year but our CSA was smaller and with no strawberry experience well, things were learned:) We planted a mixture of varieties last year as well so the few plants we have will not ripen evenly. This year we planted over 1,000 plants and are taking much better care of them with some hired labor to help keep up on weeding so strawberries should be on our list of accomplishments next year! A rhubarb bed was prepped and rhubarb plants grown from seed will go in this week as well. Also pest pressure is increasing and we are attempting to fight off cucumber beatles, squash bug, flea beatle, and the first Colorado potato beatles were spotted this week as well. There was also a lot of tomato suckering, and tying going on as well. Tomatoes are looking great so far in general and are always a staple of our summer shares. This week we will get out our fall leeks and tomatillos and work on starting fall crops in the now emptied greenhouse. It is also time to start direct seeding and planning for fall crops to include carrots, turnips, rutabaga, radish, beans, and more.