What a pleasant summer it has been. I did hear the cicadas crying out a few times, but I’m pretty sure they’re just testing out their capabilities. Cicadas only really love to do their spirited song on the hottest hours of a summer day. I can’t say that I really miss the Cicada sound this season and am very thankful for the moderate temperatures.
While the crew this summer has been loving the mild temperatures, and with another easy week in the forecast, we’re loving the moderate season. I can’t quite say the same thing for the crops. Our crops are looking great, but the peppers and tomatoes would likely start turning colors a bit sooner and push their fruits a little harder if they could get their summer heat bath that they love. The sweet corn is also tolerating the milder summer, but it too loves those hot, humid, muggy days that make the rest of us want to take a nap in their shade.
A teaser of a ½ inch of rain fell on the farm this Monday. Any rain at all at this point is much appreciated. The soil was starting to look very dry and the crops thirsty. Farmer Adam has been busy running the irrigation lines keeping routine water to the peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, and now our fall carrots, cabbage and beets are getting water too. We’re hoping for more chances of rain to appear in the forecast, but it’s not looking too promising for our zip code.
A heavy, heavy week of harvesting!
Watermelon or Cantelope– Either a red watermelon or an orange Cantelope this week. Both patches were ripe and ready. Will there be melons again next week? Maybe, we’ll see how the ripening goes for the next wave!
Carrots- Another “sweet” giving of carrots. Fresh out of the ground on Monday morning. Nothing compares to the fresh flavor these carrots have.
Celery- Another week of celery! Likely one more week of Celery givings in our future and that may be all we have to share for Celery this season. Do your best to enjoy it while it lasts. Think of blanching and freezing or drying it.
Sweet Corn- Sweet corn likes to be kept very cold! The flavor will be most sweet if you eat it the day you get it. Sweet corn will loose sweetness every day and hour it spends off it’s mother plant as the sugars will turn to starch and it just won’t be as good. It it as soon as possible if you can! We’re hoping for a couple more weeks of sweet corn givings the next two weeks! Yes!
Asian Tempest Garlic- These are a red-skinned variety of garlic that was just harvest this week. They’er a little rustic looking as we mow off the tops of the garlic, but we cleaned them up a little bit for you. The wrapper around each clove of garlic that we usually call the “paper” around the cloves is not yet cured or dried down into a papery consistency. You’ll notice that each wrapper around each clove is still a thick, juicy membrane, so you’ll have a thicker membrane to peel off of your garlic cloves this week. If you let it sit in a cool, dry place it will cure down for you in the next few weeks and resemble more of your dried garlic that you’re used to. Notice how juicy and fresh the garlic is when it’s fresh out of the ground like this. YUM!
White Onion- For your everyday use!
Cucumbers- This is peak week for cucumbers. After this week we’re expecting the number of cukes in your boxes to go way down. Enjoy the cukes while you have them, they’re going out of season on our farm fast! The cucumber harvesters’ backs are looking forward to it!
Summer Squash, Zucchini, Patty Pans– We’re also expecting production of our soft summer squashes to go down next week as well. The plants are still flowering like crazy, but the squash bugs are starting to show up and the plants are looking pretty tired.
Tomatoes- Lucky for us, tomatoes are just getting started! We love leaving the field with a truck full of tomatoes! We have enough plants in the field to fill boxes with tomatoes, but with the cooler summer, it will be interesting to see how they produce after all. We sill have several more weeks with increasing production ahead of us!
Jalapeno Pepper- These are the little green ones that can be plenty hot, don’t let your kids get ahold of them!
Hungarian Hot Wax Pepper– Also called a banana pepper. These guys can surprise you with a little heat sometimes, but generally they are quite mild in the world of hot peppers.
Red Leaf or Green Leaf Lettuce- To our amazement, we’re still harvesting lettuce! It can get a little more bitter this time of year from the heat of the summer. Lettuce is a cool-weather loving plant, so we’re lucky that our summer successions are coming to fruition.
Basil- Not a wonderful year for basil either in this cool summer, but still a nice bunch for all. Remember that basil does not love refrigeration. It will turn black if put into a cold refrigeration. Basil holds best if trimmed and then put in a glass or vase like cut flowers. Basil dehydrates beautifully for the food-preserving enthusiasts amongst you!
Broccoli or Cauliflower- There was almost enough broccoli or Cauliflower for everyone, but every box left the line packed to the brim. If you did not receive Broccoli or Cauliflower you may have received extra sweet corn, cucumbers, squash or an eggplant. There was plenty of food for all, but we came up a bit short on the broc and cauli.
