NEWSLETTER
FOR AUGUST 26, 2009
Well I'm back in the saddle again after a week on work-ation helping a friend make a summer home into a rental property. Wow, how is it that you can leave the farm for a week and come back to being behind by about three weeks? Jim, the only intern, has done a marvelous job of keeping up with the farm chores but has discovered, as I have, that one person can just barely manage the daily maintenance of the farm, much less keep up with the bugs, weeds, irrigation and all the rest. It’s a continuous responsibility seven days a week and is unfortunately very difficult to leave for even a short vacation.
This week’s bags are somewhat more of the same with more beans (purple and green), but not artichokes this time. The ‘chokes’ are coming on but did not ripen quite big enough to make this week’s fare. They have been pretty much trouble-free once planted out in the fields, but certainly took a great bit of care in the greenhouse since seeding them in December. I believe next season we will plant many more and if we have a mild winter I’m told this year’s planting might even winter over and produce again next season. It is certainly one of the few positive crops this season, and is a very unusual plant for our area, but it’s managed to produce some delicious buds for our subscribers despite the worst season weather-wise in about 30 years. You will find also this week, another vine ripe tomato or two and a bunch of the Rainbow Lights Swiss Chard that is wonderful sautéed with garlic and olive oil. To make that garlic flavor we picked a nice bunch of a rare onion called garlic chives. These can be chopped and used like garlic in any recipe. Their rich garlic flavor and chive-like onion flavor make this a great addition to so many of your dishes in summer.
Your bag has the last of the Vision corn, which is a bit more mature than last week’s. It might be the last of the corn for a few weeks because of the unfavorable weather which has practically ruined all the Silver Queen planted so far. The sweetness of this fabulous corn fermented right on the stalk in all the hot and wet weather last week. This is a huge loss of about 1,000 ears; ah, so goes farming. So, this time we cleaned up all the worms and shucks thinking this might work better for you in the city that you did not have to deal with the shucks, bugs and yucky stuff and as a bonus we can keep the compost-able stuff on the farm to recycle into our hopefully sustainable system. Do not despair, however. Our Sugar-Buns corn is coming in nicely and will make for a great late harvest.
Eggplants are coming at last and this week you have the Japanese variety called Oriental Express. This early variety is smaller than the typical large globe types but ‘eats’ just the same. Jim and I took the ugly, holey, ‘farmer’-ones and made up a big pan of Eggplant Parmesan last night with our own homemade spaghetti sauce and it was just wonderful.
So all in all we are getting some wonderful vegetables at this time of year with many more surprises yet to come. I hope you enjoy your vegetables and have a good week!
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