Monday, September 13, 2010

A quick update...

This summer our family has taken more vacations than ever before. Last year we managed to escape for an afternoon to Little Buffalo park. This summer we took 4 long weekends, a few evening concerts, and even hosted a party! It has been a fun whirlwind. However, I keep forgetting to take my laptop with me when I go away, so I can stick to my usual Sunday morning blog post schedule that got messed up in early July and has stayed that way since then. For that I certainly apologize.

To bring you up to speed: our three plantings of sweet corn all failed. The first one was the most promising as far as germination rates go The second and third plantings barely germinated because it was so hot and dry. We used our sprinkler to try to help negate the lack of rain, but it was not enough. the ground kept drying out as fast as we were watering. We focused our efforts on green and yellow beans. Hopeflly by now you are all tired of beans. We are. I hope many of you have a little stash of them in your freezer. They taste wonderful in January and February. We have been amazed at our cucumber plants. They just keep trying and trying. The fruits they have been producing for the last three months will never win a beauty contest, but they do taste pretty good. We thought for sure they would die months ago, but they have hung on all summer. Summer squash is officially finished. Yay! We didn't expect so many for so long. I hope you all found ways to get them out of your refrigerator. (This winter I must research new and exciting ways to use up summer squash. I just don't seem to find the time in the summer.) Our peppers and eggplants are still going gangbusters, though our eggplants are getting smaller and smaller. We will probably have them for a few more weeks. Our tomatoes have really slowed down. I can't predict how many more weeks we will be able to give them out. Our leeks are getting sizable, and we will begin to harvest them soon. The fall cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower has struggled and struggled with the hot dry weeks we have just come out of. We were fighting to keep it alive. I can not guarantee that we will get any worth harvesting. We have several weeks of lettuce planted in the field and covered to keep the groundhogs from eating it. As the season progresses the lettuce will get sweeter and better. The dry heat that we had made it tough and not so sweet. Kale and Chard will be making a comeback also. Our potatoes have all been dug, and we yeilded just shy of a ton. I think it is safe to expect them every week in your share.
We have been limited in what we give out on pickup days by the amount of time we have to harvest. We have been missing herbs regularly. If there is an herb you particularly wanted to have in your share, please remind us. It might be that you can pick your own as you drive out. It is our goal to establish a pick your own herbs and flowers before winter sets in. More to come later...

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Change to pick up hours for September and October

It is September already! Please remember our Friday pick up time will end at 7:30 pm for the month of September. During October, the Friday pickup time will end at 7pm. It gets too dark to see the scales to measure out your gazillion pounds of green beans.
So much has been happening here at our farm in the past few weeks, that I haven't posted as much as I suppose I should have. We are working on digging out the potato crop. It is a nice one, and will probably last many of you through part of the winter. Our watermelons did well, and we are giving out most of them this week. Cantaloupes are still ripening, so they will be along later. Our fall lettuce is doing pretty well. We are watering it to try to keep the bitter taste from sneaking in during these HOT days. Hopefully it will work. The groundhogs havent found it yet, thank goodness.
I hope to post a bit more this weekend. Enjoy!