Crops still working on getting there:
Melons - there are melons set. We need to do some weeding to better see what we have. These are all short season melons (because of our wet/late plant dates). The warm weather bodes well. Not sure how many we'll get, but it looks like a pick around Sep 15-20.
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| Ha'Ogen Melon |
Potatoes - if the plants were any indicator, they didn't fare extremely well. Many plants died early with the heavy rain. We'll get some. But, we suspect they will be smaller in size.
Kale, Chard and Collards - all of these are looking good and we expect to be picking them fairly often through September and October.
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| Red Russian kale with Pablo lettuce to right |
Tomatoes - the field tomatoes made their entry into the fray starting this week. The Italian Heirlooms, Druzba and Moonglow are three of the earlier full sized tomatoes and we were able to find a decent number of them. Here's hoping 2013 matches 2008 for a peak from Sep 15 to Oct 15.
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| Druzba tomatoes |
Crops that failed in 2013:
Onions - happily, we were able to secure onions from Tyler Albers for the CSA.
Field Peppers - Sometimes, there are just too many things that go against a crop. When the rabbits and deer homed in on these, it was just the capper. The good news, we adjusted and put more peppers into the high tunnel. So, you will see Jimmy Nardello's Frying Peppers (below), Tolli Sweet and other heirloom peppers this year in your shares.
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| Jimmy Nardello's Frying Pepper |
Field green beans - too much wet early. But, the high tunnel beans have been good for us. Maybe we should have seen this coming since we pulled in a record 1/2 ton of green beans from the field last year. Mother Nature saw us crowing about it and kicked us down a notch. The great thing is that we've been able to pull in 275 pounds so far this season anyway.
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| A tub full of yummy green beans |
Zucchini and Summer Squash - for the purposes of the CSA, we're closing the book on these. We may be able to pick 20 or 30 more fruit. But, the time needed to find them isn't worth it. We're sitting at 1793 zucchini for the season and we established back in 2009 that the 1893 we grew that year was a worthy and reachable goal. So, despite late starts and things not going the way we wanted them too, we got enough of these. Our field plan projects out to about 2200 fruit so we would have the freedom to sell some excess. Ok, so that didn't happen. Summer squash took a hit this year and landed just over 1000 fruit. That's a little over half of what we wanted to have. But, again, the CSA didn't really suffer for a lack of them. We just didn't have the flexibility in additional sales we were aiming to get.
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| Cocazelle zucchini |
Peas - This was a good year for peas, despite losing one 200 foot row to a seed issue and missing the pick on another one because we didn't get it fenced in time. Yes, of course, we had time to fence 3 of the 4 rows. And, yes, we opted to fence the row that had the seed issue and not this one. That happens. Even so, we pulled in a reasonable 128 pounds of peas (all edible pod) and were able to give CSA members multiple helpings. We're now another year wiser on this crop and think it can be improved. A reasonable goal of 50 pounds per row gives us the possibility of 200 pounds of peas next season.
Cucumbers - ahhhh cucumbers. When you grow, you sure do make us look good. We just crossed the 5000 fruit barrier this week. The record is quite safe. But, we could have challenged if we could have stayed up with the picking over the last couple of weeks. But, the heat took its toll on workers and cucumbers alike. Never fear, the birds love the culls.
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| Boothby's Blonde cucumbers |
Broccoli - They are looking very good. Most of the Gypsy broccoli have given us their main heads and will begin side shoot production soon. The Belstars are just starting on the main heads. Thus far, we're over 250 pounds of broccoli. And, we're really just getting started. We're looking for production to take us deep into October. This is one example where some extra focus by us on a crop led to success.
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| Rows of broccoli plants |
Carrots - It was nice to have a GFF crop of carrots this year. We split the 200 foot bed and grew St Valery's, Dragon and Yellowstone. Thus far, about half the row is in and about 250 pounds of carrots are the result. Jeff Sage's Tendersweet carrot crops have also done well this year. The CSA has been doing well with carrots!
Pok choi and Chinese Cabbage - during years where part of the season is rough, some of the shorter season crops end up doing exceptionally well. Why? Well, if the farm loses opportunities for longer season crops, the focus shifts to grow shorter season crops to keep the farm going and keep people fed. These two crops have benefited from the weather situation. As a result, we've pulled in over 1/2 ton of these beauties. That translates to a little over 700 heads.
Kohlrabi - we targeted kohlrabi as a vegetable we would increase a little bit so we could be sure to give everyone a few more shots at it in the CSA. Feedback was that people did like them, but they weren't getting quite enough so everyone in the family could have some. So far, we've harvested over 1100 kohlrabi with a couple more batches to go. I think we hit that one ok.
Lettuce - it has not been our best year for lettuce, nor has it been our worst. And, of course, the fall is an excellent time to grow more! Thus far, over 650 pounds have been brought in for use. We believe at least that much has bolted or been lost to various weather conditions. But, that's part of the reason we grow as much as we do. The reason most vegetable stands do not have lettuce in the heat of summer is that a high percentage of plants fail. We know this, so we plant with the expectation that we will lose more. The losses will decline as the days grow shorter and temperatures are reduced. Besides, the ducks and other birds like the greens.
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| Crispmint Lettuce seedling |
Green Finger (cucumber) - winner!
Japanese Climbing (cucumber) - will not return in 2014 to the farm.
Cocazelle (zucchini) - gets another year to see what it does.
Dunja (zucchini) - winner, but it is a hybrid, so who knows how long it will be available.
Midnight Lightning (zucchini) - good enough to return in 2014.
Peach Blow Sutton (tomato) - production and plant health is good. Still trying to figure out if it is worth it for the taste.
Paul Robeson (tomato) - only one tomato so far. But, it was really good.
Minuet and Koboko (chinese cabbage) - both winners.
Joi Choi (pok choi) - winner for all season growing.
Ella Kropf (lettuce) - will try again this fall - still learning how it grows
Mammoth Melting Sugar (snow pea) - seed problem, will try again next year if that is resolved.
Scarlet Ohno Revival (turnip) - winner.
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