Greetings All!
I hope you had a great week. Man, that was one HOT week!
Check out the sea of green over in the tomato patch! It's a good thing these were staked and tied, because these plants can barely stand up even now with all the help they have! The branches are loaded with tomatoes.
Things are looking great around here and the tomatoes are starting to ripen even more! We're thinking we should have enough for everyone's boxes because they're ripening faster! Ben isn't bringing any slicers or romas to the stand because we're holding out for you ;) Before the thought was that we'd send a handful up there because we were worried they'd go to waste if we didn't have enough for the CSAs. (We don't put them in some boxes and not all boxes.)
I hope to get out there and pick some tomatoes tomorrow but the biggest job on the docket for this weekend is getting the shelving built in the tomato lean to. I've been a big fan of organizing lately and making systems for things to be easier. Work smarter ;) I'll share a pic with you next week when after I build them today!
Something that we haven't talked about much is the MELONS! So I want to give you an update specifically on how these bad boys are doing. I think most people would have given up a couple months ago, but Ben went out and cultivated as much as he could. He even broke tines because he dropped down so low. He went over that patch every day for about 2 weeks until it dried out. Melons don't like being that wet; they're delicate and the plants get sick easily. After they dried out some, it seemed like they were stuck in a standstill. For 2 weeks it looked like they didn't grow at all. AND THEN, the hot weather came and really pushed them along!!
The watermelons look great. Ben did grow a new variety for us this season which is a seeded yellow melon that doesn't get quite as big as the other varieties. We grew a handful of them last season to test them out but this year Ben grew a few hundred plants so we could add them into our CSAs. We wanted to test them before we grew them for you guys. Taste is everything- so you really can't go off of what the seeds say because they'll all say they're the "best ever" haha.
After that nice hot weather, we're seeing softball+ sized watermelons out there. With watermelons (and lots of other crops too) you'll see that on the same vine there are many different sizes of melons. Naturally, they ripen as they get large enough so in the melon patch we'll expect to harvest melons for almost a whole month off of the same patch.
We've got a couple of muskmelon patches, the first patch is started to put on melons but there are still lots of flowers coming up too (that's really, really good!!). The second patch is just starting out; we're hoping to have those in some of our last boxes of the year- one last stitch effort to throw in something super sweet before we wrap up the season. Those are still a long ways out.
I'm not sure if anyone is counting, but we're not quite halfway through the season yet. We're just about at the halfway point. I wanted to point that out because so many people are always surprised we go so late into the fall. It's our job to grow as long as we can so our last boxes are planned for the first week of October. We've got a LOT of fun varieties to get to you this summer, so it's a good thing we've still got some time!
The peppers are looking amazing now, too! After that week of hot weather, the plants have put on SO MANY little peppers. There are some real dandy bell peppers out there now too. We'll be adding those to your CSA this week ;) These plants are LOADED now that we took off a handful of peppers a couple weeks ago- the plants grew so much that I'd guess they doubled in size in the last 2 weeks. The heat definitely helps, too! And we didn't get any of those really bad storms but we did lose a few plants due to them tipping over and the stem breaking. Not enough to make it noteworthy- but it's always a shame to lose production.
FARM STORE: In the coming weeks I'll be adding to the online farm store that we have on our website. I add the bulk items like baskets of canning tomatoes, options for the peppers and onions so you can get everything you need for your canning and freezing/processing. Or if you're just having a big party and want to have sweet corn from the farm, you can order a whole gunny sack for example. When the time comes, you can go online and order all of your canning supplies and we deliver it with your CSA Shares ;)
WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT IN YOUR CSA SHARES THIS WEEK:
Jumbo & Family Shares: Gold Potatoes, Carrots, Golden Beets, Green Peppers, Kale & Tomatoes!
Single Shares: Gold Potatoes, Carrots, Green Peppers, Kale & Tomatoes!
I LOVE this time of year because every week now we're introducing something you haven't seen yet. We've been waiting for this time of year. This week's new variety is our gold potatoes!
I have never met a potato that I didn't like ;) Every potato has a different purpose! Gold potatoes are notoriously rich in flavor, where other potatoes are lacking generally. These taste like butter, but without the butter. We've made mashed potatoes with these, fried them, shredded and made hash browns, so many different uses for these potatoes. If you look at the Farm to Table Storage Guide, you'll see that there is a whole section devoted to talking about how much starch is in potatoes and why certain varieties are better for boiling, mashing etc. To quickly paraphrase what I have there: gold potatoes are a medium starch potato so they're versatile. They can be mashed, baked, boiled, and my favorite- made into hassle back potatoes. I'll give you the recipe this week on the newsletter!
Again the skins are pretty thin so they'll fall off as you handle them. Most people just scrub these and eat the skins on them because they're so thin you can't barely tell they're there anyways. Potatoes are best stored in a dark area that's got a little bit of airflow (don't store them in a sealed airtight container). You can also freeze potatoes! The key to freezing potatoes for fries, hash browns or even simple roasted wedges—is to partially cook them first. Because they contain so much water, raw potatoes don't freeze well and can turn mushy/watery. So that "Blanching" that we talked about last week is coming back up again- you'll want to blanch the potatoes for a few minutes before cooling them down and putting them in the freezer. An average, medium potato should be blanched for appx 8 mins. It's not an exact science, plus all the potatoes are different sizes. Smaller potatoes, like 1-2 inch diameter can be blanched for 5 minutes. Then you just put them in a plastic bag, squeeze out the air and pop them in the freezer to take out later.
This picture is from last year but I wanted to show you what we have to look forward to! We haven't picked this many yet- we're letting them grow for your CSA Shares so we have only picked a couple bushels off of a few thousand plants... we've got a lot of peppers ahead of us! Something I want to point out is that you might get peppers that you're unfamiliar with this season. The trick is: if it's a sweet pepper, it will be loose in your box. If it's a hot pepper, they'll be in plastic produce bags (like the ones you get at the supermarket). If you read the newsletter you will always know what kind of pepper you're getting ;)
Peppers should be stored in the fridge. I like to store them in the fridge in a container or plastic bag. The important thing to note is that a refrigerator dehydrates produce, there is a condenser in every fridge and it has a little waterpan in the back of every fridge. You'd probably never notice unless someone told you to look; but there is a pan there to collect the water from the condenser. Think air conditioning in the car, have you ever noticed that there is a puddle of water under your car if you park and leave your car running with the A/C on? Same concept. In the fridge setting, it pulls moisture from the air that's circulating in the fridge and it will dehydrate your produce if you simply put a pepper on a shelf in the fridge.
Air circulation (also called respiration) around the produce draws out moisture and cause it to wilt faster, or to get soft faster. It's really important to limit respiration of your produce to keep it looking nice and fresh as long as possible!
Since peppers are new to our Shares right now, I shouldn't be telling you about how to store them but here we are. I'm excited, I can't help myself. I'm currently out of peppers in my freezer so I'm really looking forward to getting some put up for winter! The nice thing about peppers (and onions too, plus a few other varieties) is that you don't have to do anything to get them ready for the freezer. Just rinse them off, cut them up however you'd like and then pop them in a freezer bag and squish out the air. I'll do a handful of bags as quarter peppers so they're larger pieces, they work good on shishkabobs for example.
I also dice some up so it's quick & easy to toss into my fried potatoes, sloppy joes, hot dishes, we've got so many uses for them here. This year I also plan to freeze some peppers and onions together in the same bags again. A mixture is great because when I make tacos for example I just add a half cup of frozen pep/onion mix and viola- you've got a bit more nutrition into your meal plus they are really low calorie so it's a good way to take away some of the weight of straight ground beef, if that makes sense. Peppers are something that you'll be able to get in bulk once we start harvesting them in larger quantities.
GOLDEN BEETS
I wanted to mention that we're hoping we'll be able to give all the Family & Jumbo Shares the golden beets this week! We have a handful of red beets out there too so we might have to mix them in a little bit but we're hoping to have enough golds. This is the end of this patch, but we've got a lot more beets in the field right now. We just planted more this morning! Beets are in our Fall Shares (available on our website under the store tab) and we also sell quite a few at the Fall Sale here at the farm in October.
TOMATOES!
This is just the beginning ;) We're going to be adding tomatoes to everyone's CSAs this week! We know that we won't have enough Romas or regulars to do specifically one variety so we're just putting "tomatoes" on the list. That means that we'll be recording it all week, so I know who is getting what type of tomato and we'll apply that and make sure to even out the varieties throughout the season. We'll have solid tomatoes for at least a month! The san marzanos aren't quite ripening yet as strong so I'm not sure if we'll get any of those fancy Romas in there this week but we know we WILL have tomatoes for you this week! We're not selling any at the stand!!
PLEASE for the love of God, don't put your tomatoes in the fridge. The only exception is when you eat half of a tomato and you need to refrigerate the other half. Tomatoes are delicate and if you refrigerate them, the cell membranes will break down, leaving you with a piece of fruit that's mushy and mealy.
We are still picking off a handful of grape tomatoes here and there too, but there isn't enough to get those in the rotation this week we don't think. With it being the beginning of harvesting, anything could happen.... just like last week how I explained we wouldn't have tomatoes for a couple weeks.... and here they are! They started ripening fast enough!!!! These plants are loaded, too. It's incredible how many little tomatoes are already on the plants and how many flowers we're seeing too- every flower is a tomato, eventually! We do have 4 colonies of bees out here this season so things are looking really good and the bees are doing their best work!
Something cool that I want to share is that tomatoes have to be picked in the heat of the day. We never harvest tomatoes in the morning or after it rains, it has to be 100% dry before we go out in the patch. They are also another delicate plant that quickly succumbs to sickness. Any kind of blight will kill the plants quickly and then they're done putting on flowers. So we need to stay out of there in the morning because of the dew, and we can only pick when it's hot & dry outside so we don't hurt the plants.
KALE
If you struggle finding recipes for kale, simply add it to your existing salad. No reason to complicate things and look online for 100 ways to enjoy kale. You can add it into other stuff you're cooking, or simply add the greens into the salad! We really like adding the extre greens to our egg bakes. We've also been a big fan of smoothies; bananas take over the flavors so if you struggle to enjoy kale that could also be another option.
One tip I have for adding it into your salad is massaging the leaves. If you massage the kale leaves for a few minutes under cold water it releases some of the bitterness and gives it an easier texture that will agree with the other greens in your salad. If it's not massaged it can be a little too firm and it stands out too much. Plus massaging the greens allows it to release some of the bitterness.
WRAPPING IT UP This season hasn't been a super easy start but I'm overjoyed to see the mid-summer crops coming into harvest like we are now. THIS IS THE BEST TIME OF THE YEAR! We literally talk about this time of year, all season long. And in the blink of an eye, it's gone again.
Ben is at the farm stand again this weekend, he puts in over 30 hours a weekend just at the stand (not including harvesting, packing, unloading, etc) so I'm here solo with the farm. Greenhouse plants to water, pigs to water and feed 3x a day, chickens to take care of, all of the normal stuff. Plus building the shelves today and maybe even getting some tomatoes picked if it goes well- wish me luck :P
Unofficial thought for the day:
If a "weed" in the garden is blooming, is it really a weed? Perspective & mindset is everything, my friends!
Eat Good & Be Well,
~The Farmer's Wife
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