Hooray for rain. We needed it. Kevin spent all of labor day in the heat getting our irrigation set up to use the hydrant at the top of the hill and then Tuesday when they came to turn it on it turns out the hydrant it broken!!!!! (not broken enough so they couldn’t put out a fire, but broken enough for our purposes) I think that was the last thing any of us, especially Kevin, needed at this point in the season. But . . . what can we do?
We did manage to get some excellent cultivation in during that dry spell. Erin got to get in some practice with the cultivating tractor. In the rain this week we will get in some much needed hand weeding, which will very quickly make things look pretty sharp. Melissa hand weeded for about 10 minutes today and cleaned up 100 feet of savoy cabbage!
Hooray for our onion party! Ten different individuals/families participated and we cleaned roughly 1300 pounds of onions!
We managed to clear enough space in the back of the greenhouse for the 6 bins of winter squash we hurried to harvest before today’s rain!
Winter squash harvest is so fun. So fun. It’s like a combination between farming and softball. The yields are pretty good too, which makes it all the more enjoyable.
We are putting spaghetti squash in the share this week. The woodchucks liked the spaghetti squash too, so this will be the only time spaghetti squash is in the share. We got just one bin. We almost always end up with a woodchuck family in the winter squash that we don’t notice until it’s too late. I mean, could you find a woodchuck in this sea of giant leaves and vines?
I think some of the plants may also have succumb to bacterial wilt, since there was some heavy cucumber beetle pressure at planting, and the spag. squash plants are wimpy, which makes them easy targets. (Cucumber beetle transmit bacterial wilt from plant to plant when they bite them.)
We will harvest the rest of the winter squash on Friday (we hope) after it has had a chance to dry out.
We also pulled a lot of tomatoes in from the field before the rain, we’ll still have a good amount in the shares this week (yay!). If you choose cherry tomatoes, especially the round varieties, eat them fast, or at least eat the split ones fast. We were not able to pick them before the rain today/tomorrow so they will be bursting. They are still delicious.
Also, if you picked up your share before 1:30 last Tuesday (about 36 of you) I completely forgot to put carrots out for the CSA until then. So – you get an extra 1.5 lbs of carrots this week. I ran to the list and starred all the names that had been crossed off, so I’ll be able to give you a reminder tomorrow. Sorry about that.
That’s it. Easy email this week. we’ve got some doozies coming up, so we’ll throw you an easy one this week.
This weeks share:
Tomatoes
Lettuce Mix
Weight mix: Carrots, Potatoes, the very last of the Zucchini/Summer Squash, Leeks, Onions
Container Choices: Cherry tomatoes, Saladette Tomatoes, Husk Cherries, Shishito Peppers, Hot Peppers (mostly jalapeno and anaheim), Shallots
Spaghetti Squash
Greens/Herbs Choices: Arugula bunches, Radishes, Swiss Chard, Bok Choy, Cilantro, Parsley
(kale will be back next week, sorry for the lapse for those of you who crave it. The Brassica pests, particularly flea beetle, gave us a run for our money this summer)
Recipes
9 Restaurant Worthy Shishito Pepper Recipes (these are very trendy. We just coat them with oil and roast at 400 for like 15 minutes until the are starting to char. Make sure you are ready to eat them. Think of this like an app. or a snack, or the last thing you want to finish when you are serving a meal.)
Pan Seared Salmon with warm tomato, basil and arugula salad
Shallot Info and Recipes from Martha
Grilled Mushroom and Bok Choy with Asian Cilantro Pesto
57 Spaghetti Squash Recipes (this seems a bit excessive, but it was fun to scroll through!)
Enjoy!!
Upswing Farm 