CSA Week 15

This Week’s Harvest

Potatoes

Basil

Heirloom Tomatoes

Juliet Grape Tomatoes

Edamame Beans

Green Beans OR Yellow Wax Beans

Sweet Corn

Candy Onions

Garlic

Salad Mix

Bok Choi

Summer Squash and Zucchini

Bell Pepper OR Sweet Italian Pepper

Apple Share: Macintosh (rose and light green, tart eating and cooking apple) and Gala (red and yellow green very sweet apple)

SAVE THE DATE! Mile Creek Farm CSA member potluck is Sunday Oct. 2 from 4 to 7. We ask that members bring a dish to share for this harvest celebration. We will provide beverages and a main dish. Last year we had wonderful weather and a great turn out. We ate lots of delicious food, socialized, and toured the farm. We hope for a big turn out again this year so mark your calendars!

Farm News

These days we are all about getting our potatoes out of the ground they have been in since April and into the coolers for storage. We suspected a good potato year because the plants were properly managed and looked really healthy. Ben weeded with his homemade roller weeder, we released beneficial insects including ladybugs and lacewing larvae to keep leaf hoppers and other pests at bay, plants were hilled (dirt thrown up on them to bury the growing tubers) and fertilized. While that is a long list, Ben was able to do most of it on the tractor, making for quick work. Even planting is relatively fast, just a 2 person job that Ben and I often complete after hours.  Turns out the harvesting is the most laborious process. We have 9 of 18 beds dug–over 2,000 lbs of potatoes so far– and are squeezing in the harvest of a bed or two at time whenever we can. Just yesterday we streamlined the process and the crew is very excited that we shaved the harvest time nearly in half. Ben opens up the potatoes beds with a middle buster and we follow behind and collect all the taters that are unearthed. He’ll go back through a second time to pull up any missed potatoes. The potatoes are our best crop yet, and we are thrilled! And, like home grown tomatoes, the flavor can’t be beat!

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Planting Potatoes! I ride on the tractor, drop the potatoes down a shoot, and they get buried in a furrow
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Had a frost scare. The plants all died back after a later freeze, but they rebounded the very next day
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Introducing 18,000 lady bugs to the farm! They eat aphids, leaf hoppers and other soft bodied pests.
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Sprinkling lacewing eggs on the potato plants at night–when it is cool and moist.
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flowering potato field in early summer
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The Kennebec variety was huge!
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Middle buster digs under the potatoes and we collect the unearthed suds
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There are always a couple hearts in bunch!
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Biggest Mile Creek Farm potatoes ever! I’m looking forward to baked potatoes!

Recipes

Pesto Potato Gratin

Edamame, Corn and Bok Choi Salad

Summer Squash and Green Bean Saute