Whats in the box: Slicing tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, red cabbage, purple glazer garlic, summer squash, sweet yellow onions, red torpedo onions, green peppers, red italian frying peppers, leeks, cucumber, collard greens, and holy basil.
What’s going on at the farm: Another busy and abundant week at the farm with some enjoyable temperatures for working and finally some rain has made for a good week. We went three weeks before getting a nice calm and drenching rain this Friday. Hoping for some more as temps rise again this week. Our sweet peppers are coming in and besides the green peppers you will receive red italian frying peppers this week. They are my favorite pepper with excellent sweetness even half red and an unmistakable tapered shape which resembles a horn giving these peppers the name corno di toro or horn of the bull. Another enjoyable and new crop this week which also boasts many health benefits is holy basil. This herb has long been known to possess medicinal qualities and also sports some bright colors and flavors to enjoy. The top of the leaf is purple and underside green and the aroma is of mint while the flavor finishes off with stronger flavors of cinnamon and clove. It is great paired with tomato for sauce or minced for fresh use with tomatoes. Here are a couple great links describing the many health benefits of this slow growing basil which is actually related to the mint family as well.
Other tasks going on this week include more weeding, yes this is a nonstop difficult task which we usually do by hand with hand tools and quite frequently by hand around the young crops. We also thinned all of our rutabaga which is looking great and coming for fall. All of our mulch onion beds and weeds in the onion field were mowed down and the beds and drip line were removed to allow for plowing of this area to incorporate all organic matter. We also topped all of our fall onions and stacked crates upon crates of them up for storage into fall and winter. Our main issue right now is running out of crates as the harvests are heavy this time of year. carrots and beauty heart radishes are being hand weeded this week again too and our fall crops of brussel sprouts, and winter squash are looking fantastic right now. Lots of beans of varying types and sweet peppers coming your way as well soon, yellow bells, orange bells, and red bells of many types are slowly showing color this week in the field. Our plantings of greens, radishes, and turnips sprouted perfectly this week. More planting in the works for this week too seeding greens and roots of all sorts for fall. Until next week be well and enjoy the produce!