What’s in the Box: Eggplant, green pepper, slicing and heirloom tomatoes, purple glazer garlic, sweet yellow onion, red storage onion, Italian sweet peppers (red and yellow), sweet bell peppers ( may include orange, red, yellow), jalapeño peppers, chives, purple haze carrots, and leeks.
What’s going on at the farm: We are seeing some significant shift in weather and day length this week on the farm as nights begin to dip down into the 50’s. Summer crops will slow a bit and luckily we won’t have to work through as many humid 90 degree days either. We have a lot of sweet peppers in many colors and varieties coming in for the next few weeks so expect healthy portions of these sweet beauties. We have been making a lot of ratatouille and freezing some batches for winter. Also taco’s and fajita type dishes at home using up all the pepper seconds we can possibly consume. I also enjoy stuffed peppers with rice and beef and of course there are many twists on that dish to experiment with. Our purple carrots are back for one final week this week and of course some tomatoes, garlic, and fresh herbs and spices for you to enjoy. Our herb this week is chives which we finally established this season after a long and slow start from seed this spring. Jalapeño is the small fat possibly checked (cracked) green chile in your box and they are very hot this year…. I like to make jalapeño poppers by splitting them and stuffing them with cream cheese or cheddar cheese and then slow cooking them on the grill for an hour or so on indirect heat. I remove the seeds for this but you may want to wear gloves as the seeds have very hot oils. Fresh pico is my favorite thing to make with the ripe tomatoes, sweet yellow onion, hot peppers, and maybe a little lime, chile powder, and cilantro. You will receive the carrots topped, washed, and bagged, so they can keep crisp stored in the bag they are packed in. Wet weather, and a tractor breakdown kept us out of the planting and seeding operations this week but we will be planting spinach and salad mixes this week as it dries out. I repaired the tractor and of course on top of it a greenhouse fan broke down but we received a new motor for that fan all ready and should have all broken equipment up and running shortly. We have some nice french filet beans coming in but they are not quite ready this week, as well as purple pole beans coming in shortly behind the filet beans. Our spaghetti, acorn, and butternut squashes are reaching maturity as well this week so we should be harvesting them over the next few weeks too after which they will be cured before distributing them. A few items not on our list may make the box as well this week including celery for bi-weekly members, and cherry tomatoes which are slowing down quite a bit right now and seem to be passing their peak, sadly, along with the full size tomatoes which are definitely slowing down as well. Enjoy the summer fruits while they last folks and I will be seeing some of you at the drop sites.
