Kinda seems like fall

From SHF CSA

We've still got quite a few weeks until it's actually fall, but the weather today certainly isn't very summer like. We need some moe sun and warmth to ripen melons and get the cucumbers going. If we don't get a lot more sun and warmth I'm a little worried that we won't ripen any peppers or eggplant. For now we are seeing plenty of tomatoes and summer squash and the lettuce is also doing just fine. In the carrot department you're getting a look today at what happens when the rodents thin out a planting - giant carrots! Chard is making a come back with the cool weather and our attempts to clean up the bed a little. We also started taking out the shallots today. These will store very well in a dry spot, even well into the winter if you wanted to keep them that long for some reason.

From SHF CSA

It was actually kind of nice to be out in the drizzle, harvesting this morning. There was a huge rainbow over the sungold tomatoes. I'll take a little more heat if we can get it though. I sure would like to see a few more of the summer crops ripen before it really gets cold and wet again.

Cool Weekend

This weekend's weather was a little cool and the summer squash really slowed down, but for some reason the tomatoes seemed to do pretty well with it. So less summer squash and little more tomatoes today. We're still waiting for the first cucumbers, they're there, just really small still, maybe Thursday. A few precocious melons are out there as well, not quite ready but oh so close. Unfortunately it's going to be a while before enough melons ripen for all the shares, but we should have cucs soon. Today there's a sprig of sage, which will help the plants bush out, and a handful of basil, which will help those keep producing leaves instead of flowers. We're clearing one of the early beet beds to make way for fall plantings, and clearing the last of the swedish brown beans in their fresh stage. Finally, another head of lettuce, this from a nice young, tender planting.

Today we managed to plant four more beds - two different turnips, escarole and catalogna, and a bit more lettuce. we also freed some melons and celeriac from giant weeds. Fortunately there weren't very many weeds in the beds due to early hoeing, but the ones that were there were menacing. Very successful day I'd say.

Thursday I'll be away on other business so Kji will be flying solo. Let him know if you want to come keep him company at the farm, I'm sure he'd love to see you.

Stripping

The Thursday share is once again more or less like the Monday share - a little different lettuce, maybe some variation in the tomato and summer squash variety, but more or less the same (so take a look at that post to see what's in the share). In this post there's a photo of our progress on stripping sod off of beds, one to go! We're trying to get the final plantings of the season in, all of the fall crops, mostly chicories, and turnips, perhaps a bit of spinach and mache, although the weather hasn't been cooperating there. By the end of next week, with a little luck, we'd like to have another 10 beds, 1/8 of the farm, planted, and thus, all of the beds on the farm either planted or hosting compost piles. We'll see what actually happens next week.

Heat Wave

It's been quite warm here in Portland for the last few days, with temperatures up in the 90s. There was quite a bit of drying wind as well earlier in the weekend. Many of the summer crops are enjoying the weather. The lettuce, and other greens are not, but for the most part they'll survive. We've been planting lettuce pretty much weekly but at this point it's growing so fast with all the heat and light that we're having to jump ahead a little and we'll probably loose a little to tip burn and bolting. Today's share has a bit of blushed butter cos in it, along with the obligatory summer squash and tomatoes, a bit of dill, what is probably the last of the cippola onions, and most exciting - fresh beans. The beans are a variety I usually grow for dry beans, but they are quite tasty young and green as well. The variety is swedish brown and I'm hoping we'll get another week out of them. Maybe next year we will find space to plant enough to give them out dry as well.

Packing in the Barn

Again, today's share is pretty much like Monday's so no unique photo. The photo above is our packing area all broken down and put away in the corner of the barn at the end of harvest today. The boxes are full of share bags and extra vegetables. We spent what felt like a lot of time in the barn today packing shares, cleaning the worst of the dirt off the potatoes, and packing some of the extra vegetables for Yianni. Yianni owns the farm (land), and is cooking a big dinner for lots of folks this weekend so we took some of the unsold shares and sold parts of them to him. We've also been selling a bit of lettuce and a few other items to the County Cork on Freemont. It's not cutting into the CSA shares, and it's not completely making up for the revenue shortfall from being short on CSA members, but it's nice to see the excess getting used. A lot of the rest of the excess is actually going to the current CSA members - but not too much, we wouldn't want to overload anyone.

Zucchini Basil Muffins

More Potatoes

As stated above, today's share has more potatoes. Today we dug into the Princess LaRatte potatoes, which are a bit smaller than the french fingerlings we gave out earlier. These should be great boiled whole, and then used on a salad, or sauteed with a bit of olive oil, paprika and sea salt to crisp up the skins. There's another huge head of romaine - romaine is a big lettuce. We're picking the basil regularly to keep it from flowering so there's some of that, and we also have a nice little bunch of cilantro today. I really like cilantro on udon, with some lime and cashews that have been blended with a little water and tamari to make a creamy sauce. A few tomatoes of one sort or another round out the share today - they're still slow in ripening, and this cool weather isn't helping. Oh, I almost forgot the prolific summer squash. I think I'm ready to make a bit of zucchini bread, although fritters are also on my mind. Zucchini fritters with a bit of basil aioli are quite tasty.

We're super close to having the last of the sod stripped off of beds, which I am quite excited about. That will signal a full 77 beds planted and two dedicated to compost piles. There's one bed that still has some fence in the way so we won't make it to 80 this year. Lots of chicories are going in the ground soon, as well as turnips for the fall and winter shares.

What? No Photo?

Yep, I think this might be the first post on this blog with no photo. Today's share is pretty similar to Monday's and we were so busy stripping sod off of new beds, planting cabbage, running around turning irrigation valves, and seeding onions for next season that I forgot to take a photo. There'll be more soon though. If you really want to see what the farm looks like, come visit us on a Monday or Thursday and see for yourself. There might even be a few berries in it for you.

Deeper into summer

From SHF CSA

The summer squash and tomatoes are feeling a little more solidly on this week. We're clearing out some of our earliest carrot beds and bolting cipollini onions. The lettuce continues to look beautiful and this week we're harvesting flashy lightning. Rounding out the share are a few sprigs of dill - good in a yogurt dressing, or with some carrots sauteed in olive oil.