Healthy Color

This week, we have fresh, vibrant summer fruits and vegetables bouncing reds and purples back at you from the left and right boundaries of the visible light spectrum. We’re attracted. We’ve evolved the inability to look away from these beauties, and our bodies are rewarded by it.

Your week 9 produce box:

Sweet Corn

We’ve thinned the cornfield significantly. Remaining varieties and leftover secondary ears have reached and passed maturity. The canopy is opening a bit, allowing for more energy to reach the trellising pole beans clinging to mature corn stalks, and the creeping cucurbits doing what they can on the ground floor. The remaining ears we share this week will be more mature, perhaps tougher, still ideal for cooking or boiling. We’ve been snacking on fresh ears in the field for the past few weeks and have found that the remaining harvest has lost some of its tenderness- not as good raw but still great boiled and scraped. The pests have officially figured it out and we’ve lost some nice ears to what are likely raccoons and other nocturnal mammals. The bugs have worked their way into a few tips. You may be startled to peel back the husk and find the presence of pests, but disregard that tip and keep peeling because there are plenty of sweet kernels tucked in safely.

Eggplant

We’ll have fingerling eggplants to share this week. Our plants needed some time to recover after our last harvest but the crop is really flowering and producing impressively.

Wild Allegheny Blackberries

Wild blackberries are in season and while the harvest amongst the brambles can be a bit treacherous and unpredictable, we’re excited to share this nutrient-concentrated forage with our food community. We’ll have pints ready for our home delivery folks on Wednesday and will harvest everything we can for Sunday’s pick ups. If interested, farm pick up folks are welcome to help pick for themselves when they visit the farm. Come dressed for the thicket!

Fresh Red Cabbage

These are the best cabbages we’ve ever grown. Large, firm, and uniform with stunning color. Whether you decide to chop it up raw for a slaw, include it in a skillet scramble, or let it ferment into a kraut or kimchi, these heads ought-not disappoint.

Fresh Red Onions

These have been in the works since February- a long time to wait for a vegetable that you typically only pull once. Onions are always a reminder of how strange our food values can be. A lot of time and effort goes into growing an onion on a small scale. They’re cheap, widely used, but often overlooked, or maybe even taken for granted. Of all the garden vegetables that a homestead could consider “worth growing” at the beginning of the season, onions are a perennial stretch to justify- especially from seed. But when it’s time to harvest, with all the senses involved, it sure feels all worth it.

These fresh “Redwing” onions are pulled the day of delivery/pick-up. They’re crisp and bursting with flavor.

Specialty Peppers

Last week, we handed out Shishito peppers to our Wednesday home delivery shareholders and “Nadapenos” to Sunday farm pick-up members. Our plan this week is to switch it up so that our Wednesday folks can expect the mild Jalapenos and our Sunday folks can likely expect Shishito peppers.

Our experience with the mild Jalapenos has been interesting, and encouraging so far. We love the flavor of Jalapenos. Often times, we feel like we could use more flavor, more peppers or larger chunks, but can’t handle the unavoidable spice that comes along with the added mass. The “Nadapenos” have been giving us all the flavor we’d expect from a Jalapeno, but the’re gentle. They still tingle your mouth like a traditional hot pepper without what can be an overwhelming residual heat.

Bell Peppers

Bell Peppers are slowly starting to turn ripe. We’ll continue to distribute mild peppers weekly and folks will be able to experience the slow ripening and subsequent flavor shift from the fresh aromatic crunch of a mild green pepper to the creamier, balanced satisfaction of a red-ripe sweet frying pepper.

Beans

We’re continuing to pluck large Dragon Tongue beans from our 100 foot row. Hand-harvested beans, even on our small commercial scale, are hard to keep up with, and while these are more mature than we prefer, they’re still perfectly suitable for a good hearty meal. Additionally, we’re beginning to harvest pole beans from our “Three Sisters” garden block. As our sweet corn is harvested, the stalks remain, curing upright, supporting the vined and maturing pole beans. We’re now able to select mature pole beans dangling among the maize’s yellowed tassles. These are heirloom varieties rich with history- “Blauhilde” purple beans and “Cherokee Trail of Tears” green snaps. From a seed packet:

Pole. 65 days. This heirloom was brought from Tennessee by the Cherokee people as they were marched to Oklahoma by the federal government in 1839 over the infamous “Trail of Tears” that left so many dead and suffering. This prolific variety grows on vigorous vines. It is good as a snap or dry bean and has shiny, black skin.

Cherry Tomatoes

These vines have been vigorous and unruly but continue to throw a constant supply of new and ripening fruit sets. We’re happy that we have been able to include these sweet treats week after week. We’ll continue to do so until production slows in the fall.

Heirloom Tomatoes

The heirlooms are piling up! These field tomatoes are full of character. In exchange for full-flavored, soil-grown, natural tomatoes, we have to work around some cracks and blemishes on the fruits. Despite the imperfections, we find value in knowing these were produced in the open air, without the need for a large plastic structure. We like to be reminded that while a “perfect” tomato can indeed be grown in a “perfect” environment, a perfectly good homegrown tomato can thrive in a perfectly good open field, maybe where it belongs.

Eggs

We’re being cautious/conservative with our egg production but hope to get back to weekly full dozens for everyone. The flock has been safe and productive the last couple weeks. We’ll have colorful half’s again for our shareholders this week.

Flowers

It’s peak flower season. There is plenty of variety available and each bouquet has its own unique design.

A note on Cucumbers:

We’ll bring a small bag of cucumbers out for delivery on Wednesday, but we haven’t reached a critical mass to distribute to all shareholders. Cucumber production has been weird this year, but we’re hoping it works out in the end.

Thanks again folks, we appreciate you all! Don’t forget to share how you’re using your box this week,

Erin & David