Farm News- August 19, 2010

Hi Folks,

This will be a brief update since I am late in writing it. My computer died last week and after determining that it was not worth fixing, today I purchased a new one. Between setting it up, learning my way around a different operating system, and getting the farm work done, it’ been a hectic day.

Greens continue to be scarce and we have run out of lettuce as well. We’ve been planting more and should have some again in about a month. Spinach and arugula are up and growing and should be ready about the same time — in mid-September.

Meanwhile, tomatoes and melons are ripening rapidly and ground cherries are falling to the ground profusely. For those of you new to the CSA, ground cherries are an odd fruit in the solanaceous (tomato) family, closely related to tomatillos, having the same paper husk around the fruit. They are the size of cherries and they fall off the plant when ripe so we gather them off the ground, hence the name. They are very sweet and have a unique nutty pineapple flavor. Ground cherries are one of those items that people either love or hate, so we will send them as a choice with cherry tomatoes.

We had a couple of days of drizzle this past week, which while it was enough to help some of my recently planted seeds to come up, didn’t do much for the overall soil moisture levels. We have a couple of more chances for rain this week, so hopefully we will receive some more substantial precipitation.

The share for this week will be:
Tomatoes, beets, potatoes, leeks, tomatoes, melons and /or watermelons, beans, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant (maybe), choice of cherry tomatoes or ground cherries, choice of an herb and more tomatoes. The fruit share will be peaches and red plums.

Enjoy!
Farmer John