NEW HIGH TUNNEL UPDATE
Week #13 September 6, 2016
Your box this week, depending on size, may contain the following vegetables: Chard, Fresh Field/Storage Onions, Leek, Tomatoes, Sweet Potato Greens, Eggplant, Sweet Peppers, Lettuce, Possible Extras: Cabbage, Herbs, Kohlrabi.... Sweet Corn?
UGH.... apparently Mother Nature isn’t A basket of HOTS.... Almost too pretty to eat.
quite ready to let go of high Summer temps. We were really appreciating the escape we felt from the cooler temps, but it looks like we have to gut through another week of heat wave. It’s not like we’re not somewhat adapted to it by now! Anyway, Jim’s been busy cleaning up a lot of spent beds while we watch our newly germinated and transplanted crops make up for lost time - we hope! We are also hopeful that some of the corn will finally be ready for picking this week, although it will be a hunt and pick: a lot of the ears seem way too skinny. Maybe between our few rains and the heat, they will muster some girth. We hope you enjoyed the long weekend as we did, even though we couldn’t go too far. The fields needed water, so we rotated the big field sprinklers all day.
FINALLY,
NEW HIGH TUNNEL UPDATE We’re closing in on filling the 96 foot length, using 18 horizontal 30’ x 4’ beds. I direct seeded a couple more carrot beds on Saturday and transplanted both Swiss chard and sorrel, a very pretty red veined, green leaved variety of specialty greens. Add to that, on Friday, Rachel (another of our volunteers that I need to profile) transplanted kale to fill 2 beds in the tunnel. Again, Chinese cabbage and lettuce transplants and perhaps arugula and spinach, more carrots........we’ll be ready for winter production very soon.
with our volunteers’ help and persistant spraying, the fall beds of brassicas (Brussels sprouts, kale, broccoli, caggabe, etc.) are looking almost beautiful, like our early Spring rows looked: clean and green! Radishes sown last Wed. or Thursday are up already, joining the beets, arugula, carrots and turnips! We checked the winter squash, and they look good for harvest perhaps near the end of this month. We’ll also start checking the sweet potatoes, but since there was an order mix-up, we received them and got them in a bit late. The healthy looking greens took off quickly, so we want to believe the ‘tats are doing well also.
Did you catch that amazing sky last Thursday evening? Wild, wonderful colors and formations that never cease to amaze.
Correction: That would be “hornworm” heaven to where we send these creatures.
Addendum: I will spare you the creepy photo of our harvest
buckets of hornworms (The volunteers decided in some corners of the world, these might be delicacies, sauteed or not. Lots of meaty protein, we’re sure!) which did make it onto Facebook. With each harvest of 60-80 worms, and with an audience of us and whoever was helping on a given day, we’d toss these to our feathered girls in the pasture. At first, looks of puzzlement, then pecking, snatching and running, stealing from one another, and if we got lucky, a tug of war!
Farm to Table.....this weekend! Celebration of food and sharing food! My special-diet-needs friend, former “Watervillan”, and former high school chum of Jim’s and mine, is coming to visit this week to help us prepare for our 3rd Farm to Table Dinner this Saturday evening. Even if we get the rain we are predicting, it’s going to be the best one yet and we’ll have a blast.....maybe under a tent (?) Anyway, she can eat sauteed onions and potatoes, so out comes the stored cabbage. In spite of the heat, we will be inside in the AC for weeknight dinners . What better time to put together the onions and cabbage sauteed in butter and then pair with steamed or mashed potatoes. It’s one of our favorite “comfort” meals. A little handful of uncured bacon crisps on the top, please!! On then, on with the weekend show!
Your box this week, depending on size, may contain the following vegetables: Chard, Fresh Field/Storage Onions, Leek, Tomatoes, Sweet Potato Greens, Eggplant, Sweet Peppers, Lettuce, Possible Extras: Cabbage, Herbs, Kohlrabi.... Sweet Corn?
UGH.... apparently Mother Nature isn’t A basket of HOTS.... Almost too pretty to eat.
quite ready to let go of high Summer temps. We were really appreciating the escape we felt from the cooler temps, but it looks like we have to gut through another week of heat wave. It’s not like we’re not somewhat adapted to it by now! Anyway, Jim’s been busy cleaning up a lot of spent beds while we watch our newly germinated and transplanted crops make up for lost time - we hope! We are also hopeful that some of the corn will finally be ready for picking this week, although it will be a hunt and pick: a lot of the ears seem way too skinny. Maybe between our few rains and the heat, they will muster some girth. We hope you enjoyed the long weekend as we did, even though we couldn’t go too far. The fields needed water, so we rotated the big field sprinklers all day.
FINALLY,
NEW HIGH TUNNEL UPDATE We’re closing in on filling the 96 foot length, using 18 horizontal 30’ x 4’ beds. I direct seeded a couple more carrot beds on Saturday and transplanted both Swiss chard and sorrel, a very pretty red veined, green leaved variety of specialty greens. Add to that, on Friday, Rachel (another of our volunteers that I need to profile) transplanted kale to fill 2 beds in the tunnel. Again, Chinese cabbage and lettuce transplants and perhaps arugula and spinach, more carrots........we’ll be ready for winter production very soon.
with our volunteers’ help and persistant spraying, the fall beds of brassicas (Brussels sprouts, kale, broccoli, caggabe, etc.) are looking almost beautiful, like our early Spring rows looked: clean and green! Radishes sown last Wed. or Thursday are up already, joining the beets, arugula, carrots and turnips! We checked the winter squash, and they look good for harvest perhaps near the end of this month. We’ll also start checking the sweet potatoes, but since there was an order mix-up, we received them and got them in a bit late. The healthy looking greens took off quickly, so we want to believe the ‘tats are doing well also.
Did you catch that amazing sky last Thursday evening? Wild, wonderful colors and formations that never cease to amaze.
Correction: That would be “hornworm” heaven to where we send these creatures.
Addendum: I will spare you the creepy photo of our harvest
buckets of hornworms (The volunteers decided in some corners of the world, these might be delicacies, sauteed or not. Lots of meaty protein, we’re sure!) which did make it onto Facebook. With each harvest of 60-80 worms, and with an audience of us and whoever was helping on a given day, we’d toss these to our feathered girls in the pasture. At first, looks of puzzlement, then pecking, snatching and running, stealing from one another, and if we got lucky, a tug of war!
Farm to Table.....this weekend! Celebration of food and sharing food! My special-diet-needs friend, former “Watervillan”, and former high school chum of Jim’s and mine, is coming to visit this week to help us prepare for our 3rd Farm to Table Dinner this Saturday evening. Even if we get the rain we are predicting, it’s going to be the best one yet and we’ll have a blast.....maybe under a tent (?) Anyway, she can eat sauteed onions and potatoes, so out comes the stored cabbage. In spite of the heat, we will be inside in the AC for weeknight dinners . What better time to put together the onions and cabbage sauteed in butter and then pair with steamed or mashed potatoes. It’s one of our favorite “comfort” meals. A little handful of uncured bacon crisps on the top, please!! On then, on with the weekend show!
