Farm News – July 18, 2016

Hello Everyone!  So the heat wave continues; great for those warm weather crops but not so easy on my crew and I.  We received ¾ of an inch of rain this past week from a downpour which lasted about 20 minutes.  While this is not ideal, we are grateful for any precipitation.  Eggplant and peppers have begun, and we are harvesting the first few tomatoes.  We believe we will have enough peppers and eggplant to provide a small quantity to all groups.  If we run short, we will start a rotation to cover all members in the next 2 weeks.  I expect to have a few tomatoes in the shares for next week.  We have also begun harvesting melons and the same holds true with these – if you don’t receive one this week, you will in the next share.  These are mostly small varieties, such as Sun Jewel, a Korean melon that looks like an overgrown cucumber – yellow with white stripes.  We will soon have cantaloupes and honeydews and, later on, watermelons.  The beans have also started to come in; there will be a small amount this week with larger quantities in the coming weeks.  We had planned to ship red torpedo onions this round but we still have an abundance of the large yellow sweet onions so we will repeat these and save the reds for next week.

Also new this week is celery.   Our celery tends to be a little stronger in flavor than the typical California grown type you are accustomed to; the outer stalks are best for cooking and the inner ones suitable for salads.  Cauliflower is heading up prolifically; a few groups received some last week in place of broccoli.  There is now enough for everyone and we still have broccoli coming in as well.  We will begin another rotation with the broccoli so that everyone will have received it 4 times this season.

The share for this week will be:  Summer squash, cucumbers, green cabbage, lettuce, sweet onions, beets, choice of Swiss chard or kale, eggplant, peppers, string beans, melons, celery, and cauliflower and/or broccoli.

Enjoy!  Farmer John