This Week’s Harvest
Potatoes
Sweet Corn
Jalapeno Peppers
Garlic
Sweet Onions
Basil
Tomatoes
Farm News
All it takes is a cold front blowing through with just the right amount of rain to feel like a new person! The tasks before me don’t seem daunting anymore, the crop failures aren’t bothering me, and all feels good and right with the farm! The crops in our final production fields seem happy too!
The bad news is our first planting of fall brassicas is pretty much a complete loss. This includes our only planting of cauliflower, kale, napa cabbage and brussel sprouts and first successions of cabbage and broccoli. This acre block of crops just never recovered from the wet, hot, humid swamp like conditions that encouraged the spread of black rot. We did get 2 weeks of kale in the boxes before the black rot spread, but we are used to having gorgeous kale through December. The absence of fall kale just seems crazy, because its never happened to us!
The good news is that the rest of the farm looks amazing! I went on a field walk and started mapping out the final 9 boxes. They are going to be chock-full of delicious veggies! Black rot appears to be present in the brassicas, but we are foliar feeding the crops and harvest looks promising so we expect to have broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi as well as other brassicas. We have fall carrots for the first time since 2011, harvest will begin soon on our largest block of fall beets ever, and we are growing radicchio for the first time and it looks fantastic! We are also direct seeding plenty of fast growing crops like radishes, salad turnips and arugula. Add to all this our storage crops of onions, garlic, potatoes, winter squash and sweet potatoes and you can see that season will end with a plethora of food and flavors! I just love fall!
Recipes
Stewed Okra, Tomatoes and Celery
Thai Basil Shrimp and Okra (add bok choy!)