In this week’s box:
Summer Squash and Zucchini
Fennel or Chiogga Beets
Sweet Onions
Broccoli
Swiss Chard
Cabbage (Grown by Hungry Toad Farm in Centerville)
Basil

Fruit share: blueberries from Berryhill in Xenia

This spring our cabbage did not make it into the ground. Fortunately we were able to trade veggies with our friend Michael Malone of Hungry Toad Farm so that we could get some cabbage this week. We are starting our fall cabbage this week, but that won’t be ready for a couple of months.

Farm notes

As everyone is well aware it has been awhile since we’ve had a good rain and unfortunately it looks like it will be a while until we get another good soaking. This complicates things around the farm. The most obvious consequence of dry weather is the amount of time that we spend setting up and running irrigation, but we right now we are more concerned with the effect that dry weather is having on cultivation and tillage.

This time of the year we are constantly cultivating the fields with hand hoes (don’t really know why the drought doesn’t effect weeds!?!). Hoeing is usually not a difficult task, but when the soil is too wet or too dry hoeing can become almost impossible. When it is wet the hoe just picks up dirt and quickly becomes useless. On the other hand when the soil is too dry as it is now it can feel like we are hoeing in a rock garden. It is impossible to hoe ground that has not been recently irrigated.

Tillage is also negatively effected by the dry weather because the ground has become so hard that our chisel plow and tiller don’t work like they are supposed to. With the chisel plow we can’t cut into the ground as deeply as we would like. And the tiller doesn’t work the soil to the fine texture that we need to direct seed some of the fall crops.

So, we’ll wait for rain and rush out into the fields as soon as it comes!

Recipes

Broccoli and Fennel Risotto (use your sweet onion in place of shallots)

Browned Cabbage (A favorite recipe of mine growing up. You can omit the caraway seeds if you wish)

Ginger Basil Cabbage (summer squash, zucchini and broccoli would be good additions)