CSA - Week 12

Hopefully everyone had an enjoyable Labor Day weekend and for those of you with school age children or that are teachers, I hope you survived backed to school Tuesday! 

We received almost 6" of rain since last Thursday, and since several of this weeks items grows underground so we will be doing plenty of washing with this week's harvest.

Nothing ever produces exactly as planned but one crop I had been disappointed in this year was green beans.  The primary plantings were stunted a bit from the overly wet June and just never got up to full yield.  Fortunately they are still producing and the two additional plantings that I did in early July are now kicking in. We picked 65 lbs of beans between Monday and today so heavier bean bags in the shares this week!

Prima apples are wrapping up, and we are now starting on McIntosh.  While the Prima's don't have a long shelf life, they are very resistant to apple scab. Meanwhile the McIntosh stay firmer longer and store better, but they are extremely susceptible to apple scab.  Apple scab is a caused by spores that infect the leaves of the apple tree in early spring following warm rains and then the spores on the leaves drop onto the apples as they are forming and cause black splotchy surface defects.  As long as the the scab is not too severe the apples are fine, just not very pretty.  In cases where it is more severe it causes the apple skins to crack as they grow larger.  The organic fungicide spray that we have used gets washed off with every rain, which also happens to be the time when the spores are released, as a result it isn't very effective.  So when you get both Prima's and Macs in your shares this week, the ones with the black surface blemishes are the McIntosh, they won't win any beauty contests but they are delicious!  :)

This week's shares include:

  • Parsley
  • Basil
  • Potatoes
  • Carrots
  • Green Onions
  • Jalapeno Peppers
  • Tomatoes
  • Cherry Tomatoes
  • Green Beans
  • Lettuce
  • Apples