Farm News- September 29,2011
Hello Everyone,
We seem to have dodged a bullet this weekend as the heavy rains predicted did not materialize. We received only about a half an inch of precipitation as opposed to the 3-5 inches forecast as possible. We’re not completely out of the woods yet, as there are still a few days of scattered storms and showers ahead. Nevertheless we are grateful for the reprieve. The fields are still quite soggy, but I was able to plant another batch of mustard greens, spinach, turnips and radishes just ahead of the rain. I am hopeful we will be able to resume digging potatoes with the machine soon as we have been harvesting them by hand these past weeks; an arduous task.
We are back in the bean business again as the late planting begins to mature. While we don’t have super abundant quantities the quality looks very good.
The peppers are full of small fruit, so hopefully we will have a few ready for next week’s shares.
We will have more greens in the shares now each week as we progress through the back end of the season. The arugula is still a bit small, so we will wait another week on that, but we have tatsoi, mizuna, and some broccoli raab. We also have the baby white salad turnips for this week which also have lovely greens for steaming or braising.
We have been busy harvesting the pumpkin and winter squash crop and it looks fairly good in spite of being planted a bit late. I am worried about how well it will keep due to the wet conditions; many of the pumpkins are already beginning to go bad. We will be shipping butternut squash this week, selecting those which have a skin condition that will preclude extended storage. It does not affect the quality of the meat but do not hold on to them- eat them or cook them and freeze the pulp.
We will have herbs in the shares again next week as the dill and cilantro is almost tall enough to cut.
The share for this week will be:
Romaine lettuce, string beans, salad turnips, mustard greens, potatoes, shallots or cippolini onions, and butternut squash.
Enjoy!
Farmer John
