Summer sings in all of her summery glory this week. The sweet corn is sweet, the tomatoes are ripening, and the cantaloupes remind me of bubble-gum and everything that is sweet and soft and delicious in life. The air is humid and hot. The monarchs are fluttering around in the fields laying their eggs. Ahhh, summer!
The way we get sweet corn on this farm is by putting up five lines of electric fencing around the corn to keep the raccoons out. We need to get the fence up a soon as the silks on the first succession of corn begin to turn brown on the ears. If we did not put up the electric fence, we would not be able to grow sweet corn at all. The raccoons are so sneaky and numerous they will completely wipe out a crop. The electric fence does the trick as long as we keep the grass mowed down around the fence to keep it from shorting out and the fence battery charged.
Last week we finished onion harvest on the farm. The greenhouse that was once filled with all of the little transplants that populated our fields is now filled back up again as an onion-curing room. We put shade cloth over the top of the greenhouse to keep the onions from getting too hot in that greenhouse. They look so beautiful all laid out on the tables curing. Like royalty, somehow laying in the shade on their thrones with the fan blowing on them in all of their contained bulbus richness.
We are picking a lot of green beans now. On Thursday the crew picked over 600lbs of green beans to share with you all this week. That’s a lot of helping hands picking beans and if you have any gardening experience you know how long it takes to pick just one pound of beans. It’s a lot of hours spent chatting, sharing life stories and getting to know one another better and better. We hope you love the green beans as much as we do and appreciate them in your box!
We spent most of Friday getting the rest of our Spring carrots out of the ground and then catching up on some much-needed weeding projects. We always loose control a little on the weeding projects when the big harvests like garlic, onions and now green beans end up taking up most of the crew time in addition to cucumbers and summer squash/zucchini. But I’m thinking that starting this week we’ll be able to start catching up on weeding a little more.
On Saturday we got a much-needed 1.5 inches of rain preceded by very high winds. Luckily the crops were all okay. We did have a large tree branch fall on the roof of our house and do some significant damage. Luckily we were all okay. It made for a very exciting Saturday afternoon though! Our neighbor and friend, Brandon, came and helped us get it all chainsawed up. The branches are already cleaned up and the wood is stacked. Now for getting the roof repaired!
Hopefully we’ll be done with all transplanting by the end of this week if everything goes well. We are hoping to seed some fall Spinach and radishes this week as well before what’s looking like a little rain potential this weekend. When we’re done planting we can begin to give most of our time to weeding and harvesting.
What’s in the Box?
Melon x 2- You likely received both a canteloupe and a watermelon.
Cucumbers– 3-4 cucumbers per member this week. We have two successions of cucumbers producing right now, so we’re really getting a lot at the moment!
Zucchinis and Summer Squash– 3-4 The squash are still going strong but the plants are starting to look like they’re getting a little tuckered out from all the heavy harvesting.
Green Beans– 1.47 lb bag of beans per member this week. I love it when we get to pick the beans when they’re a little smaller like this. They’re so much more tender when they’re small. Not a huge bag on the first giving, but there will be more!
Collards-
Onion- One white onion per member this week. All the onions for the year have been harvested. They’re all ‘curing’ in the greenhouse now.
Sweet Corn– 5 Ears per member. This is the first picking of sweet corn for the year. We’re hoping to have at least a few more weeks of corn to share like this as long as we can continue to keep the racoons out of the corn. So far so good though! There is nothing like fresh sweet corn! Did you know that sweet corn needs to be kept very cold to preserve the sweetness? Put it right in your fridge when you get home and keep it as cold as possible until you get a chance to eat them.
Celery- One head of celery per member this week. The Celery this year have been loving all of the rain. Usually local celery is a little dry on the insides of the stalks if they aren’t irrigated regularly and have a stronger celery flavor, but this year many of them were very juicy. They still have a darker green color than California celery and are bursting with celery flavor. The greens of the celery plant can also be used in soup, garnish or however you like! Keeps best in a plastic bag in the fridge. Also, there will be celery now for a few weeks in a row, so get your celery mojo workin’!
Tomatoes– They’re starting! 1.3 lbs per member. You may have received either 1-2 Tomatoes or 1 half pound of sun gold cherry tomatoes. Sun Gold cherry tomatoes ripen orange, so don’t wait for them to turn red!
Next Week’s Best Guess: melons, sweet corn, green beans, cucumbers, summer squash, zucchini, onions, tomatoes, fennel, celery, Pepper?
Recipes-
Cucumber Cantaloupe Agua Fresca
Green Beans with Crispy Oven Fried Onions
Yellow Squash Tots with Garlicy Yogurt Dip
