Basic Share – Week 8
What’s In The Box: Summer Squash and Zucchini, Garlic (polish softneck), Collard greens, Cabbage (savoy and/or green), Cucumber, and New Red Potatoes.
What’s Going on at the Farm:
Well we finally got our rain. Unfortunately it came with some heavy winds which flattened some areas of our field. Our peppers were tall and heavy with big tops and setting fruit but the wind flattened most. Good news is they will be saved and are not physically snapped at the stem, just to heavy to lift themselves back up so we will be staking up all of our peppers this week 🙂 Same story with the eggplants although they were a little more protected. I guess we got the rain we were asking for so no complaints on the extra work at hand for the week.
This week on the farm we got down and dirty digging lots of potatoes and garlic. Several thousand bulbs of garlic were dug, cleaned, bundled and set out to cure in the greenhouse. There are two varieties you have not received yet coming from this harvest. For identification purposes German extra hardy and Chesnok Red. German extra hardy has several very large cloves usually three to five while the chesnok has around 10 cloves a head. It will be several weeks before the garlic is properly cured but these new types will start coming to you with the top on next week. These tops are not for eating like they were with the green garlic, but simply left on for curing purposes only. After the full curing period when it has dried down we will then top the bulbs and give them a final cleaning to get the finished bulb product with a trimmed neck. This cured garlic will store all the way until spring in a cool dry place at room temperature but should never be refrigerated or washed. Refrigeration will make your garlic sprout quickly and washing can make it spoil as moisture is trapped under and between the layers of wrappers around the cloves.