What’s in the Box:
Cantaloupe, heirloom tomato, porcelain garlic, sweet yellow onion, red torpedo onion, leeks, sweet peppers, green pepper, eggplant, curly kale, summer squash, padron peppers, and sage.
What’s going on at the farm:
The site prep for greenhouse three continued this week. I took down a large pine and a 5 foot wide hardwood hackberry tree that took two days to cut up to make room for the future building. Now it is ready for excavating the roots, stumps, and leveling the site which I will do with the new tractor. These were not some little trees so it really gets the blood pumping to do such a dangerous job. I got several quotes from three different companies on the ideal structure and it looks like the grant will cover about 2/3 of the cost. Apparently the cost of steel rose over 15 percent recently. Also investing in solid structure components like metal hips and baseboards, ventilation, and metal end framing can lead to less headaches later and a more reliable long lasting structure in my opinion so that’s where i’m leaning on it. I should be able to grow enough in it to still pay it pack within a year with the grant so on we go with the project! We got hit with heavy rains this week receiving over 10 inches the last few days and the fields are thoroughly soaked. Amazingly I was able to get in a planting before the last rain came. I had a nice area prepared from earlier weeks work and seeded lettuce for salad mix, spinach, and radishes! Hopefully they did not all wash out with the heavy rains and we will have some greens coming back for the last few weeks of the season.
Melons and cantaloupes are coming in now but the yields are not incredibly high and all this water is not good during the cantaloupe ripening period. My plants are making fewer large melons this year. I’m going to try and get everyone a cantaloupe this week. If it is cracked at all from the excess moisture you should try to eat it or refrigerate it right away. So starting of the list this week is;
Cantaloupe. This delicious dense fruit is not as sweet or easy to ripen during heavy rain periods like this but they are coming in none the less. Hopefully it does not affect the sweetness. (https://www.sweetfixbaker.com/) The variety grow has exceptional flavor and texture so keeping my fingers crossed. You should cut these when they have a light yellow color to the skin (but no later) and a light scent to the stem end of the cantaloupe. That is ideal ripeness in my opinion but they should all be close to or at that point when you receive them this week. Enjoy!
Tomatoes, are still going strong in the greenhouses and a nice blend of slicers are coming to you this week. Our outdoor cherry tomatoes are pretty much finished with all the rain this week. Enjoy the late summer tomatoes while you can because they are getting smaller and slowing down now.
Green peppers and sweet peppers are back and peppers is one veggie my kids and I all love in this household. I’m sure your familiar with these as well!
Eggplant is also back and these fruits are also getting smaller and slowing down a bit this week, These are great cooked just about any way you can think of buy my favorite is frying slices breaded and putting caramelized tomato and onion over them.
Garlic, sweet onions, and torpedo onions, will help make your cooking flavorful and savory in so many ways. I’ve been making kabobs a lot lately and grilling the onions, peppers, squash, eggplant, tomatoes, marinated with a little oil and sweet sauce.
Sage is our herb this week, it is wet from the heavy rains which is not ideal for this herb so do try to dry it out or you could refrigerate it and use it fresh sooner then later. It will not store well cool and wet for long. Sage has a great savory flavor that lends itself well with onions, garlic, meat or protein dishes like grilled chicken, beans, etc…
Padron peppers are our hot pepper this week. These wrinkly peppers range in size from tiny to larger then a jalapeño. They are a spanish peppers traditionally sautéed in olive oil and sea salt until they soften and blister. They have a great flavor like that but the larger ones tend to be fairly hot. The small ones are usually not but thats the thing about padron peppers, you don’t really know how hot each one is until you try them. We have a few ripe red ones too so those will be sweeter and hot for sure. In my opinion if they get large they are always hot so keep that in mind when eating them.
That’s it for this week folks. This is going out later then normal as its been very busy and exhausting here with the greenhouse project going on but I am going to get out in the fields and get harvests and packing done for deliveries today.
Thank you for being great CSA members! -Kyle