In this week’s box:
Kale
Heirloom tomatoes
Slicer tomatoes
Sungold cherry tomatoes
Sweet corn
Red and green leaf lettuce
Candy onions
Basil
Sweet Italian red peppers
Bell peppers
Garlic bulbs (It is best to store garlic at room temperature in a dark pantry or cabinet, NOT in the fridge where the humidity and temperatures will actually cause garlic to sprout prematurely.)
Our CSA farm tour previously scheduled for last week will be happening at 7:30 PM this Thursday. If you are free please come join us for a tour of the farm. Our walk around the farm will probably last around 30 minutes with a chance to socialize in the barn or yard (wherever is cooler!) before and after the walk.
Farm Notes:
Yesterday we resumed our regularly scheduled watering routine. We had gotten almost a week long break from twice daily irrigation set-ups, and boy was that welcome and long overdue. Let’s hope that it is not another two months before it rains a significant amount again!
Even if it hasn’t really cooled off that much and even if we haven’t shifted to a wetter weather pattern, we can still tell that we are progressing towards fall by the fact that the days are getting shorter. With the shorter days usually comes cooler nights and the chance of germinating some of our fall crops (the soil is just too warm for too much of the day to germinate radishes, turnips, etc. with any regularity during the summer).
It also means that it is time to set the chicken’s alarm clock so they don’t sleep in and stop laying eggs! It turns out that chickens need about 14 hours of daylight in order to keep laying. So before the days get too short we have to start waking them up early enough to make sure they are awake for long enough each day to keep laying eggs. Then when the days get really short in the winter we have to both wake them up in the morning and keep them up at night with a light.
This week’s recipes:
Kale and chick pea stew (canned chick peas work fine and substitute 2 pounds fresh tomatoes per 28 ounce can)
Sweet corn, tomato, basil salad