Week fourteen is here and a series of severe storms made the last week super humid and challenging including our Tuesday CSA drop and market getting interrupted with 60 mph winds. It was a hard week but it looks like more normal temps ahead in the near future so that’s good. Today i’m going to dig some carrots, harvest microgreens, pick tomatoes and till the fields to prepare for a busy Monday after writing this. Peppers really loved the rain and heat and humidity and we should have some of those this week for you. The colorfuL Italian sweet peppers and bell peppers are still little slow but if we can we will include those too this week if its at all possible… Here is this weeks crop list.
Curly Kale: Our kale is packed with vitamins and good for sauce or salad when massaged with some oil…. add some pea shoots, or seasonal fruits and cheese to make it even more flavorful and interesting.
Garlic: Our garlic is good with everything you could create in the kitchen and fully cured and dry with good flavor. No need to refrigerate just store dry at room temperature.
Cherry Tomato: These are still just as juicy and sweet as the first week they started coming in. The plants look healthy but they are also slowing down some at the moment although i expect more flushes coming soon so we shall see how they keep performing. They’ve been keeping us busy lately so more likely i’m just noticing patterns in the cycle of fruit set and ripening since I work with them nearly every day! We will give you all as many as we can muster.
Tomato: Slicers for your sandwiches, salsa, pasta, sauce, or just plain eaten like an apple with a little salt as one customer told me last week. These are starting to slow down for the season which is why we loaded everyone up on these wonderful summer fruits the last 6-7 weeks but the amount of these coming in now will go down every week in this last quarter of the season.
Pea Shoots: This weeks batch looks like it should produce enough for everyone to get peas as we’ve been really keeping on the micros lately thanks to a past season worker who was all ready trained in them coming back to help on them for a while.
Purple Bell Peppers: This weeks pepper is a purple bell but basically a green bell on the inside so the flavor is similar. These are a new variety this year so let me know how you like them… should we keep them or just grow more red and yellow and orange peppers? We are going to do as many peppers as possible every week now until the end so we may have green pepper or some sweet pepper included this week, it just depends how harvest goes tomorrow.
Zucchini is going strong and some green and or yellow zucchini will be in shares again this week. Enjoy them while you can cause in a few short weeks they will be done.
Patty pan squash: These pan shaped squash are just like zucchini as far as where you can use them and how to prepare them.. they can be grilled, sautéed, roasted, or even fried.
Carrots: Our orange carrots are more tender than the yellow carrots and we will be distributing them topped and bagged from now on. They will store well in the bags in a crisper too with some humidity so keep them humid and closed in a bag for best results.
Basil: Great to go with your tomatoes, and stir fries with zucchini and peppers kale and garlic over rice or whipped into pesto. with or without some garlic for a great homemade flatbread spread with tomato and zucchini slices for homemade pizza!
Thats all the crops from this mid summer August week folks. Enjoy all the summer fruits, greens, herbs and garlic and see a lot of you at the dropsites soon. Thank you, be healthy, and enjoy! -Kyle
