A blessed 2.9 inches of rain have fallen on the fields of the farm since last week! It came in a thrilling and exciting storm on Friday night in a blast of wind and rain with lots and lots of lighting. On Monday we had our first actual rainy harvest day where we were harvesting kale in the rain with full rain gear enjoying every moment of it.
Having finally gotten rain, the soil has softened and so have our muscles. There is a sense of relief that is felt in the neck, shoulders, hearts and minds of farmers. Like dried balls of tapioca softened and spongy from the hydrating drink, the farm is wet and soft once again. The farm feels happy and the crickets sing their songs of summer glory.
The farm is in peak production. Ripe fruits in every direction. We pick melons every few days on the farm as they ripen and when we open the cooler door, an intense smell of melons fills the packing shed. Cucumber and zucchini harvests wane and fizzle. Tomato harvest every two days that gets heavier and heavier with each picking. I wonder how so many fruits can come off of these plants? Even the minty smell of the tomato plants is reminiscent of summers and summers and summers ago. The tomato plant smell awakens something ancient from within me like we have known each-other much longer than just a mere lifetime. My desire for these summer fruits is hypnotizing and I enjoy their juicy flesh and flavors like a fiend. My summertime fix can finally be satiated. Complete with ripe sweet corn, my body will be
We have finally finished direct seeding all of our fall crops like spinach and radishes and carrots and beets. We still have a little more lettuce and kohlrabi to transplant this week, but soon we will be done planting altogether for 2023, other than garlic, and we can focus on harvesting the fruits of all of our labors. Amazingly, we have been dropping seeds into soil for six consecutive months to supply the CSA with successions of over 40 different vegetables for a 20-week supply of food.
This week we will continue green bean harvest which takes a crew of 6-8 people an entire day to complete. The green beans are a very time-consuming harvest, but a favorite summer vegetable in every home. The crew enjoys green bean harvest as well because when the plants are loaded with beans, the crew gets to sit down and it’s a slow crawl across the field with conversations brewing and bubbling alive and strong. We get to huddle around with our heads bowed to the bean plants and solve the world’s problems together in a morning’s time while nibbling raw green beans.
We will also be preparing for our 5th annual Summer Evening Farm to Table Dinner this Saturday night. We’ll get caught up on the trimming and mowing and try to make the farm look pretty for Saturday night. The farm dinner was an idea we had a few years back to invite you out to the place where your food is grown and to celebrate the bounty with you. Mostly we want to cultivate memories and relationships with our CSA members so that when you think of your CSA farm, you think of the warm feeling you had with amazing company on a beautiful summer evening one August. Next week I can tell you all about it, because you’re all there in spirit either way!
Sweet Corn– 8 ears sweet corn per member. Sweet corn is sweetest the sooner it is eaten after being picked. You will want to eat it up as soon as possible. If you don’t eat it right away, be sure to get it into the fridge to keep it cool.
Melons- 3 per member mixed variety. Melons could be either a cantelope, a yellow watermelon or a canary melon. Canary melons are bright yellow on the outside and are not to be mistaken for a spaghetti squash. Canary melons are unique in that their flesh is green and crispy like a cucumber. We pick the canary melons ripe, so don’t feel like you need to wait for it to ripen and don’t wait for it to get soft! Melons are usually fine on your counter until you get them eaten up.
Celery- We’ve picked over the largest of the celery by now, but there are still plenty of beautiful looking stalks out there. We’re continuing to share celery for another week or two. Notice how local celery is different from California celery, much greener and stouter than Cali celery, but wow, the flavor! Celery greens can be used as well if you get creative!
Cucumbers or Summer Squash/Zucchini- 1-2 items per member. Zucchini, summer squash and cucumbers are really slowing down now. We’re still getting a trickle to share with you here.
Onion- One white onion per member this week.
Tomatoes- 4 lbs+ per member this week. A wide variety of tomatoes to share, pink, yellow, red, and ‘black’ heirlooms, red slicers, romas, we grow it all! This was the first picking and we’re so excited to be back in the tomato patch picking tomatoes again this year to share with you! Tomatoes love 50 degree storage temps. We pick any tomato with a ‘blush’ which means any amount of color that it has started to turn, we pick em. They still qualify as ‘vine ripened’ tomatoes even when we do it this way. If we picked every tomato when it was 100% ripe, you would instead receive tomato sauce in your boxes, and that gets messy! We highly recommend not putting tomatoes in the refrigerator as refrigerators tend to suck flavor out of tomatoes. For maximum flavor and enjoyment, allow them to sit on your counter to ripen and promptly use up once ripe!
Red Curly Kale- Keeping you stocked in cooking greens for your salads, soups and fritattas. Keeps best in a plastic bag in the fridge.
Hungarian Hot Wax Pepper- Also called banana peppers. These are technically a hot pepper, but they are one of the most mild hot peppers on the spectrum of hot peppers. Some of them aren’t even hot at all if you remove the seeds and membrane, but some are. It’s a bit of a roulette. Hoping we can share jalapenos next week.
Green Beans- 1.10 lbs of green beans per member this week. A lovely summer treat.
Next Week’s Best Guess: Sweet corn, melons, green beans, celery, tomatoes, hot peppers, onion, garlic, collards, carrots, peppers?, eggplants?
Recipes
Ultimate Kale Salad with Creamy Tahini Lemon Dressing
Home Made Mayo (or call it Aoli-for your egg salads, tuna salads and BLT’s) Because we got through A LOT of mayo at our house in the summer and to buy mayo using high quality oils is VERY expensive, so make your own, it’s very easy! Just make absolutely sure your eggs are at room temp! I like to toss a clove of garlic in there for fun!
