Summer Week 12—Fall is in the Air

THIS WEEK’S SUBSCRIBER MENU:
• Broccoli Shoots
• “Bingo” Shelling Beans
• Summer Squash or Zucchini
• Pickling Cucumbers
• Garlic
• Dill
• Beets or Baby Beets with Greens
• Mizuna

Click on the links above for information and recipes about these crops.

COMING SOON:
Baby Carrots
Spinach
Kale
Potatoes

The U-pick area is open for cut-flowers. Pumpkins will be ready the first week of October!

People have been complaining about the weather—it’s either too hot, too wet, or too humid. I don’t remember a summer when we’ve had so many rainy spells AND it’s been warm. It’s actually been quite nice for the farm. Humid isn’t pleasant, but the plants are enjoying it. All except the basil—we lost that to a never-before-seen blight of some kind. One week spots appeared, and the next it was all black. Nasty. So basil is done for the year.

Moving the brassicas to the neighbor’s field was a good choice—we’ve had a great crop of broccoli this year, with no Clubroot. The cauliflower, not so much, but cauliflower is very picky—you could say it’s the prima donna of vegetables. Oh well, we’ve got more planted for fall and hopefully that patch will do better. But the broccoli has been divine, and it just keeps on giving.

The slicing cucumbers in the greenhouse are slowing down. Maybe we’re just catching up, finally. But the pickling cucumbers outside are still pumping them out, so we’re sharing with you. You can follow this, or another, recipe for refrigerator pickles, or you can just slice them up and eat them. There’s no reason not to eat a pickling cucumber in a salad. It’s just a name.

Click here for Quick Pickle Recipes

I’m going to ‘fess up now: our u-pick patch has been somewhat of a disaster this year. The flowers have done all right, but I’ve weeded twice and they’re still a mess. The pumpkins are doing well and there should be plenty next month. You might, maybe remember how quickly the peas came and went. And the beans looked promising, but we were getting ready to put up the poles (because I planted pole beans) and they weren’t tall. As it turns out my lovely pole beans were mislabeled and turned out to be a yucky little dry yellow bean. So, alas, there are no u-pick beans to be picked. I’m very disappointed, and I’m sure you folks are too. I’d be happy to let you pick in the pole Romano bean section if you want to, because I know several people have planned their preserving on the u-pick beans. Please let me know if you are interested and I’ll set you up.

We finally got our Farmiversary T-Shirts printed! Let us know if you would like to purchase one—they’re $15, and we have adult sizes S, M, L, and XL, and youth M and L.

It’s hard to believe, but our Winter Season starts in just 8 weeks! I’ve got the application form updated, and you can find it here:
Winter CSA 2013
Please let me know if you have questions, and remember that if you pay by September 20, you’ll save a bit.