Week 14, 2010

September First

And the leaves on the trees here at the farm are showing the first signs of changing colors. I watch for this with hopeful anticipation each year. I love the decompression that the farm starts to feel as the seasons slowly turn. The heavy demands of weeding, harvesting and planting all at once give way mostly harvesting, a small amount of weeding and the planting is all done for the season, save for our garlic which won’t get planted until Early November.

Adrianne, one of our worker shares, harvesting tomatoes

A larger tomato harvest than we expected this week! And we spent many hours picking green beans on our bums and knees. A variety of helpers came and we had several different people pitching in with the green bean harvesting this week because, as you may know, green beans are a very time consuming harvest! It leaves time for plenty of chatting about off-the-wall subjects like other life forms, re-incarnation and memories from our childhoods. You would be amazed what kinds of things we start talking about when we’re out there from hour-to-hour doing the same thing. We get to know our worker shares quit e well and have developed close friendships with many of them.

The cooler weather that is expected will offer a pleasant relief from the 90 degree temperatures that have been testing our endurance. The dry weather has also offered some relief. I sense that the plants are also thankful for the monsoon season to be ending. Although, by the time the rains arrived on Tuesday night, we were actually in need of some moisture. Our fall plantings of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kohlrabi and radish were in need of a drink of water. We have some lettuce plants out there that also looked like some rain would do them good.

This week we had some baby chickens hatch out after some ‘broody’ hens sat on a couple piles of eggs for a 21-day marathon of not moving from their eggs except to consume a small amount of food and water. Adam is in charge of the laying hens and these 10 baby chicks that just hatched out are an exciting new arrival for the farm. We’ll need to raise them for at least 2 months before we know if they are male or female chicks. The females will be new egg layers on the farm and the males will become gifts to anyone looking for a rooster…or dinner, one or the other.

Sooo, What’s in the Box???

Red Norland or Youkon Gold Poatoes–  Just un-earthed a couple days ago.  We do not wash our potatoes because they store better with the dirt on them, they’re difficult to clean, and it can damage the tubers handling them so much.

Scarlet Nantes Carrots–  Beautiful, firm orange carrots.  These carrots looks so much better than the last bed we dug.

Green Cabbage–  The last of the cabbage until our fall successions begin to come on.

Green, Yellow and Purple Beans- A labor of Love.  Beans are quite perishable, eat them up soon!  The purple beans turn green when you cook them!

Momma Jane harvesting cherry tomatoes

Tomatoes–  Your classic pink Brandywine, Purple and Green Cherokee Purples and the new Yellow Brandywines.  We also gave some more of the common red tomatoes and the oblong paste, roma tomatoes.  If they are not quite as ripe as you like them, leave them sit on your counter for a couple days and they will be ripe in no time.

Bell Peppers–  Green, Red and Purple Peppers.

Hot Peppers- Hungarian Hot Wax are the long, lime-green peppers.  The long, skinney and red ones are the cayennes and watch out for the short orange peppers that are the Habaneros.  The Habaneros are among the hottest of all the hot peppers.

Parsley- The parsley can be dehydrated if you don’t think you can use the whole thing.  Or else, it’s a nice addition to almost any meal in small doses.

Swiss Chard–  The Swiss Chard leaves this week looked absolutely stunning.  Some cooking greens to hold you over until our lettuce is ready!

Cherry Tomatoes–  The Sun-Gold Cherry tomatoes are the small, orange ones.  There may have been some of the larger, red cherry tomatoes in there as well.

Recipes