Farm News – August 7, 2014

Hello Everyone, we continue to enjoy mild temperatures for this time of the season. Unfortunately the several days of potential rain that were predicted over the weekend did not bring us any precipitation. We have been busy seeding and transplanting fall crops and were hoping for some rain to get seeds germinating and young plants to take root. We will have to begin moving our overhead irrigation around the fields and keep our fingers crossed for the next chance of rain on Wednesday.

We have been having a tremendous season thus far and I expect we will continue to have abundant variety and good quality produce for your dining pleasure. Every season has its problems though and sometimes there are crop failures. Currently we are experiencing a pause in eggplant production, due primarily to a small critter called the flea beetle. We have been working to control this pest and the plants are beginning to flower again. I expect we will be back in production soon. We have also lost a very large planting of basil to a fungal disease. This too, we are working on controlling and we continue to set out more plants, so hopefully we will have basil again in a few weeks. There were not as many tomatoes ready last week as I expected so some groups did not get any as I had promised. I apologize for the disappointment. Tomatoes will begin to ripen prolifically very soon.

The share for this week will be: Beans, lettuce, fennel, peppers, white onions, tomatoes, garlic, beets, summer squash, melons, red cabbage, and cucumbers.

Enjoy!   Farmer John