August 12th, 2026
I’m always amazed at how much change happens on the farm in just one week. New successions and new plantings coming into maturity. It’s very exciting that sweet corn season is finally here, melons are entering main stage and tomato production is really ramping up. We are onto our second succession of cucumbers really cranking out a lot of cucumbers keeping us loaded with the cooling, alkalizing and hydrating plants we need to survive the summer heat.
New this year we are growing three successions of cucumbers. Currently we are picking our second succession with still one more whole succession to carry us through the summer and into late summer/early fall even. This week we did our second sweet corn picking and we are thrilled to be putting 5-6 ears of corn in each CSA box this week. We will still have 3 more weeks of sweet corn to come in the next three weeks of CSA boxes.
Tomato production is just ramping up. We were able to give everyone 2lbs bags of tomatoes this week but we will work our way up to 8lbs bags eventually so that you’ll have so many tomatoes you’ll have to dust off those recipes of yours that really call for quantities of tomatoes. You’ll be able to make your favorite tomato sauce and fresh pico de gallo recipes to use them all up! It might be possible that I live through each winter dreaming of tomato season. Tomatoes give me hope and optimism for each new season.
We also had to put up a new, emergency deer fence around a 4 acre field on the farm that our later successions of melons, cucumbers and winter squash are in. We were noticing substantial damage in a new field from deer. The deer were chomping large bites out of dozens of in-mature melons, cucumbers and butternut squash. We decided it was just too much damage, so we put up a large fence to keep them out. So far its looking like our efforts are paying off. The nasty deer are going after crops that historically on the farm we did not not need to put up fences for to keep them out. They were even getting into our first succession of sweet corn. Even though we had an electric fence around the sweet corn field to keep racoons out, the deer were stepping right over our electric fence in broad daylight snacking on your sweet corn! It’s been a bad year for deer pressure!
Another new pest we have on the farm this year is the Japanese Beetle. Historically, we have not seen the Japanese beetle on this farm or had any notable damage by them. We have seen one or two, but this year they are fully present. They were really culminating on our basil these last couple weeks. Farmer Adam was able to spray one of our OMRI listed for organic farmers approved insecticides to kill them, but wow, they’re not a fun pest to have. We’re excited about our new method for harvesting basil where we only harvest 30-50% of the plant and it re-grows fairly rapidly in the heat. We hope to continue putting basil in the CSA boxes this summer.
What’s in the Box?
Melons– 2 Melons per box. One Yellow Doll Watermelon and One Canary Melon or Cantelope. If you feel that you’re cantelope needs a day or so to ripen, allow it to sit out until it starts to smell delicious and then cut into it. The Canary melons are the yellow melons in your box. When you cut into a canary melon they have a flesh that can be white-ish to yellow-ish that is crispy like a cucumber. They don’t ripen a whole lot off the vine, but you could let them sit to ripen a bit as well.
Sweet Corn- 5-6 Ears sweet corn per member. Sweet corn is best when eaten fresh off of the stalk. The more time that passes from the moment a sweet corn is harvested, the sugars begin turning to starch. For maximum sweetness, eat your sweet corn as soon as you receive it. If you don’t eat it right away, store it in the fridge to slow down the process of the sugars turning to starches.
Cucumbers- 3-4 Cucumbers per box. A lot of the cukes that went out in this week’s box were from our new planting, but we were still picking from the older patch too where they’re a little less perfect.
Summer Squash- 1-2 per box. The summer squash are really waning quickly now. Not many more weeks of squash to go.
Green Beans- .40lbs per member this week. Lots more beans to be picked on the farm coming up! We picked the beans in the early morning dew and some of the beans seemed to have gotten a little muddy. Green beans generally don’t like to be wet, so we don’t wash them. You may need to give them a rinse before you use them.
Lettuce- 2 Heads per member. So fun to still have lettuce in Mid-August. Maybe with all the rain, the lettuce de
Celery- One head per member. This is the final week of celery going out, so some of what we had left out there was smaller, but still, how awesome is it to have local celery?! Remember to store your celery in a plastic bag in the fridge to preserve moisture.
Tomatoes- 2lbs per member. A couple important reminders as Tomato Season kicks off! We pick all tomatoes with a ‘blush’. This means any greenish tomato that is just starting to show signs of pink or red or orange or whatever color they ripen. They are still considered ‘vine ripened’ tomatoes this way. If you receive a tomato that is still not quite ripe, just leave it on your countertop or windowsill for a few days until it ripens soft to the touch. Never put tomatoes in the refrigerator unless they are so ripe they are going to spoil and you need to buy yourself more time. Refrigerators suck the flavor out of tomatoes.
Cherry Tomatoes- .3 lbs per member this week. More coming each week! We grow a variety of cherry tomatoes called Sun Gold which ripen Orange. I believe that they are the absolute best tasting tomato on planet earth-but that’s just my personal opinion. It’s important to know that they do ripen orange. Don’t wait for them to turn red, it will never happen. But aren’t they yum!
Basil- Basil prefers to be handled like fresh cut flowers. In an ideal world, we would have put them in little vases of water for you to keep them looking super fresh, so please excuse a little droopyness. All the more reason to use it up soon! You may want to try to keep it in a glass of water once you get it rather than in the fridge. Basil never keeps well in a cold refrigerator.
Garlic- One head of garlic per member.
Next Week’s Best Guess: Melons, Sweet Corn, Green Beans, Tomatoes, Cucumbers, lettuce, Cherry Tomatoes, Sweet Peppers?, Mint?, Garlic, Summer Squash?
Recipes
Avgolemono — Greek Lemon Chicken Soup
(for using up your celery)
