Week 8 Shares

It's hard to believe another summer is coming to an end :(  Back to school shopping was high on the list of priorities this past week as the remaining days of summer vacation has entered single digits.  Best of luck to all of the students, teachers, and parents in the upcoming school year! 

Lots of farm and orchard related activities this week as well:

The new batch of chicks have settled in nicely and are starting to sport their white wing and tail feathers already

We have just about wrapped up our field strawberry planting project which has added 4 additional 100' beds.  It has been a dual purpose project, cleaning up and narrowing the rows in the hoop house and utilizing the excess space in the aisles of our young orchard.  We installed drip irrigation and weed block prior to planting so once they fill in, they should be relatively maintenance free (hopefully)

Our apples continue to make good progress, while still a bit smaller than normal at this point due to the dry conditions most of the summer, they have started to catch up some over the past week.  The Macs are usually ready just after Labor Day, we are starting to see a few drops so we'll keep a close eye, but hopefully they hang on a bit longer and continue to size up!

Fortunately not a lot of fruit set on this tree....

This week's shares will include:

  • Potatoes
  • Tomatoes
  • Cherry Tomatoes
  • Cucumber
  • Zucchini or Summer Squash
  • Beets
  • Swiss Chard
  • Red Romaine lettuce
  • Arugula - a bit dirty from rain splash but we didn't want to wash and pack it wet
  • Basil
  • Garlic
  • Jalapeno Peppers
  • Blackberries
  • And a final picking of sweet corn, not a lot of ears and they are pretty small but perfect to cut off the cob and use in this awesome foil packet recipe - http://dfo-recipes.weebly.com/grilled-shrimp-foil-packets.html
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Written by Wade Decker On

Week 7 Shares

Well you won't hear me asking for rain again at least for a couple of weeks.  We received just shy of 10 inches from Friday through Tuesday morning!  While it was very much needed, it put a bit of a wrinkle in our normal Monday and Tuesday harvest schedules.  It was all hands on deck this morning to pick and bag/containerize as much as possible.  Beets and arugula got pushed off to next week, however everything else made it in!

Our next batch of chicks arrived yesterday, they are acclimating well to their new home, spending most of their time eating and sleeping.  They will be at the fuzzy, yellow, and cute stage for about the next two weeks, feel free to bring the kids and stop by to check them out

The field tomatoes are starting to come in this week, we've got a couple of new heirloom varieties this year:  Purple Ukraine and Kellogg Breakfast.  Like many heirlooms they still have green/yellow shoulders but the rest of the fruit is ripe and delicious.  The Purple Ukraine are a cool red and green on the inside as well. 

Purple Ukraine on top, Kellogg Breakfast and Brandywine on bottom

And of course because we were already running behind on harvesting.....the front tractor tractor tire that I knew had a cut in it but had not had a chance to replace yet, completely blew as we were going back to pick up potatoes, so there was a lot of manual hauling of harvest totes from the fields to the shed today.

This week's share contents:

  • Sweet corn
  • Tomatoes
  • Cherry Tomatoes
  • Cucumbers
  • Cilatro
  • Zucchini/Summer Squash
  • Jalapenos
  • Red Potatoes
  • Green Beans
  • Garlic
  • Blackberries
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Written by Wade Decker On

Week 6 Shares

Another hot and dry week!  We are starting to see some signs of stress on a few crops, but hopefully the weather forecast is accurate and we get some rain at the end of the week.  We are picking what the raccoons have spared from the first planting of sweet corn, from my walk through count yesterday it looks like 3 ears for a half share and 6 for a full.  The ears are smaller due to the lack of moisture, but the one I sampled still tasted great!

Our daughter Clare used some of the blackberries this past week to make a delicious batch of cupcakes with blackberry frosting.  The recipe link is:  http://dfo-recipes.weebly.com/lemon-cupcakes-with-blackberry-frosting.html

Our cherry tomatoes are starting to ripen up and I'm excited for everyone to try a couple of the new varieties we planted this year.  One type, Sweet Pea Currant, was a bit of a mistake, I didn't realize it was a bush variety and that the tomatoes are only about 1/4" - 1/2" in size, picking is quite laborious but they taste good and are cool to throw in a salad.  By far my favorite new variety is Sun Gold, it is a bright orange cherry with an amazingly sweet flavor (and it's way easier to pick than the tiny sweet peas)

This weeks shares will include:

  • Red Potatoes
  • Sweet Corn
  • Summer Squash / Zucchini
  • Cucumbers
  • Tomatoes
  • Cherry Tomatoes
  • Green Beans
  • Lettuce
  • Basil
  • Jalapenos
  • Blackberries

A note on storage for the basil - it does not like to be refrigerated.  We've found that keeping it in a glass of water, with the cut stem end down in the water, seems to work the best.

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Week 5 Shares

Add bacon and bread to the grocery list, BLT season is beginning!  We began harvesting some tomatoes from the hoop house this week, they are a combination of Big Beef and Hungarian Hearts both provide large slices perfect for a sandwich or burger!

This weeks shares will include:

  • Lettuce
  • Cucumbers
  • Summer Squash/Zucchini
  • Tomato
  • Green Pepper
  • Jalapeno Pepper
  • Garlic
  • Blackberries

The apples are progressing well at the orchard, the drier than normal weather has resulted in lower pest pressure so far, but we continue to monitor yellow sticky cards for apple maggot fly.  Two rows of McIntosh are looking good as well as several rows of Red and Golden Delicious.

The racoon battle continues, they have shown zero interest in the cans of tuna that I have been using for bait that worked very well last year.  Several dozen ears have succumbed over the last few days, in fact they seem amused to leave partially eaten ears right next to my traps!  After consulting with my dad yesterday I switched to dry cat food for bait and I scored two overnight and had no crop damage, perhaps the tide is turning....

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Written by Wade Decker On