Still Summer

There has been a good bit of chopping, raking, and tugging going on at the farm this week as we clear and clean beds for fall and winter cover crops, with the end of the season slowly approaching. Thanks to our volunteers for their helping hands and to the rest of our shareholders for their support and good vibes.

We’ll be sharing the following harvests this week:

Delicata Squash

We continue to pull ripe, cured squash from our 100 foot row of Delicata. Running parallel to these hybrid squashes live our Butternuts, gradually yellowing toward a ripe and ready orange. We’re patiently awaiting this year’s chosen winter squash to show us our first undeniable sign of Autumn’s arrival.

Potatoes

We’re digging spuds out of our clay-heavy soil. With two 100-foot rows yet to be tapped, we plan to keep digging until we’re pulled all the eligible tubers for our shareholders.

Tomatoes

The tomato vines have officially passed their peak, becoming unruly and unproductive. Though many fruits continue to ripen on the tired vines, we anticipate offerings to slow in the coming weeks as Tomato harvests have shifted from sophisticated, pleasant fruit-picking to something more like an uncivilized scavenge or forage.

Cherry Tomatoes

There remain plenty of good bits and slices of full sized, ripened tomatoes left to enjoy. We expect smaller offerings of cherries, likely only a small handful this week.

Bell/Carmen Peppers

Ripe, colorful sweet frying peppers, fresh and filled with flavor.

Special Pepper Variety

We’ll be offering a number of special peppers this week with varying levels of heat. The yellow peppers are Bananas, rarely providing any noticeable spice. Wrinkly Shishitos are to be included. When they’re green, there’s about a 10% chance you’ll encounter any heat, but the reds ones are hotties. Our only full, uniform, green peppers this week are “Anaheims.” These are comparable to the Carmens and Bell peppers we’re all familiar with, but with a little kick to them (very little). While these rows of hot and special peppers took their sweet time this season, there’s plenty to harvest for the end of summer.

Okra

We love growing Okra. They grow from a peppercorn of a seed to a small tree in a single season. They require a harvester’s constant attention as it’s an unforgiving crop, like a summer squash. In the evening, you think you’ve pulled all the available fruit and by morning you discover woody monsters. Production is ramping up slowly and while we’ll only have a few for shareholders this week, there’ll be plenty to go around in September.

Arugula

The brassicas are back this week. While they’re a necessary crop for any midwest garden, though they’re quite attractive to the critters. This week’s Arugula harvest has its blemishes, but they’re spicy and nutty and ought to be great as a salad base or a sandwich topping.

Radishes

They don’t like the summer quite like the spring and fall, but we have colorful, spicy roots for your flavorful salads this week.

Swiss Chard

Our Swiss Chard continues to replace previous harvests with vibrant new leaves.

Flowers

Erin has returned to arranging beautiful, fresh bouquets to display this week.

Eggs

Again, we apologize for our underwhelming egg production. All the eggs that we collect on the farm go to our shareholders, but still only a half dozen per family. If the hens provide, we will distribute full dozens to our farm pick up shareholders at the next opportunity.

Erin & David