What’s in the Box: Cherry tomatoes, slicing tomato, red cabbage, purple glazer garlic, summer squash, patty pan squash, sweet banana pepper, cucumber, zucchini, sweet yellow onions, celery, leeks, lacinato kale, serrano chile pepper, and basil.
What’s going on at the farm: Another busy and challenging week on the farm this week as we prepare for fall while managing summers bounty and the ever present heat reminds us how important water is. We have some more new crops coming for you in this weeks offerings including cherry tomatoes. Our blend is tasty and diverse and includes small and large red, orange, yellow, white, pink, and a variety of striped tomatoes. Red cabbage is in this week and it is a spicier thicker and heartier cabbage which is great for roasting. Cauliflower is a maybe for shares this week and new crops, we had planted much more of this but unfortunately the deer were also very fond of this crop this season. It is very reluctantly that I admit they won on this crop but they ended up taking over half of it before it made it through its first week in the field. I have off season plans to do some major work on our field edges to deter this every increasing problem here. Sweet banana peppers are also in this week and they have a wonderful flavor and aroma almost like they would be spicy, but no spice to these sweet peppers at all. Celery has turned out amazing this year and if your not going to use it right away the best way to keep the stalks crisp is to cut it off the greens and band them together separately if you want to use them later. They can be used to juice, or in cooking as you would parsley. Our onions are half cured at this point so keeping them at room temperature is best from this point on with all onions you will receive. The same goes for the garlic which is fully cured now and ready to store until next spring in a room temp place out of direct sunlight.
We were able to accomplish topping and cleaning nearly all our garlic this week and harvest all of the sweet onions which are curing very nicely and rapidly in this hot sunny weather. We also harvested all of our red cabbage for the coming summer shares and have them stored in the cooler along with an inpouring of summer squash. We mowed in the swiss chard and cultivated weeds in our sweet peppers, and in row around all the brussel sprouts. We pounded in poles and hung trellising for the pole beans and cultivated weeds around them, the late filet beans, beauty heart radishes, and rutabaga. I also found time to plant yet another planting for some late season traditional green beans, and white salad turnips. Much more planting coming in the coming week along with the hefty task of topping all of our summer onions once they are fully cured. Until next week we will keep on trucking through the summer heat and hope you all enjoy the veggies!
