This Week’s Harvest
Green Beans
Salad Mix
Cucumber
Garlic
Jalapeno Peppers
Garlic
Farm News
We have made the transition from spring crops to summer ones. This is the last week of cooking greens until fall (I thought the Swiss chard was going to hang on but it looks pretty fried so we went with kale, which had a really good run this year). Head lettuce, spinach and arugula are through as well, so any salad greens in our summer boxes will take the form of our lettuce mix. With the end of the cooler crops comes the beginnings of the summer crops. We are happy to include fairytale eggplant and green beans this week!
Tomatoes would have been in the box too, but our field planted ones aren’t ready yet and our hoophouse planted ones had a complete meltdown. Our crop rotation in the hoop houses is limited because we only have 2 of them. So every other year we are growing tomatoes in the same ground. I think disease in the soil might be a problem. The other issue is that we installed our hoophouses before we really knew the lay of the land and they are in in a low spot that stays pretty wet in the spring. A few years back, when we had drainage tile installed, we put some tile lines in near the hoophouses, but we really need drainage directly under the houses as well. This, of course, isn’t free and yet another investment we need to make to improve the farm.
Farmer friends of ours had issues with hoophouse tomatoes and had the soil tested. Turns out their water source is slightly acidic and years and years of use brought the pH of the soil way up and the tomatoes reacted poorly to the basic soil. So now they simply lower the water pH by filtering an acidic additive in when they water and have had great results. We don’t really know what’s going on until we get the soil tested and can game plan from there. Doesn’t really help us out for this year but soon enough we’ll be rolling in tomatoes! Our field tomatoes look fantastic! On Friday, we planted our final round of tomatoes, which meant we got all three planned plantings in the ground and should have a supply until frost (knock on wood!)
Recipes
Green Bean and Celery Casserole
Roasted Eggplant and Zucchini Wraps
Tacos with Green Beans and Tomatillo Salsa
Coming Up Next Week (our best guess…..) Fairytale Eggplant, Green Beans, Radishes, Bell Peppers, Shishito Peppers, Red Onions, Zucchini, Carrots, Sweet Corn