Thanks to Kji

In today's share are many of the summer favorites. Kji harvest and took the photo, I'm just passing it on and I'll be back next week for the start of fall I'm up on Salt Spring Island to co-teach a three day intensive on market farming with Michael Ableman and David Cohlmeyer at Foxglove Farm.

Big Carrot!

Today's share is basically the same as Monday with one substitution. There is oregano instead of parsley, since parsley came last Thursday. Next week is the final week of the summer season, even though solar summer ends this weekend. I think I did that because I'm actually going to be up teaching in Canada so Kji will be harvesting and delivering for me. 

One other note, I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but there is a write up on CSA on neighborhoodnotes.com today and the photos of Slow Hand Farm (and me) were actually taken this morning. All of the photos are from Slow Hand Farm, except for the photo of the actual share which you'll recognize as far too large. That share I recognize as one of Sauvie Island Organics' beauties.

Carrot Tops

I usually try to only include vegetable parts that can be eaten, or that allow better transport. For example, I always include beet greens and turnip greens if they are in good shape because they are tasty. Carrot greens I've gone back and forth on. They are edible, but I've never eaten them. There ate some recipes in this quarter's Edible Portland so I thought I'd include the greens today. The carrots are juane du doubs, big, yellow and especially good for cooking. They store better with the tops off. Also in the share are stocky red roaster peppers. These are just starting to color and sweeten as they turn red. If you want more color just leave them on your counter for a week or so. Lettuce is very small this week. Growth on plants is slowing way down. Cucumbers, summer squash and tomatoes continue, and there's also a bit of parsley in the share.

Filming on the farm

The share today is different from Monday's once again. I've kind of gotten on the track of introducing new items on Thursdays just because of how things have been ripening in the fields. There are no beans, cilantro or basil today, but there is pepper and parsley. The peppers are stocky red roaster and they are just starting to turn color. You can leave them out on the counter and let them continue to color, or use them right away green. With a little luck we'll have lots of these in their red form in a couple of weeks. 

If you look closely at the photo above you might notice a guy with a video camera. OSU is using the farm in a training video series they are developing so the camera was out all day and even followed me on the road as I hauled boxes on the Bullitt this morning. I'm not sure if the video will be made public but I'll let you know if it does. 

Late Summer

The summer is winding down and so the next few weeks will be the final push for many of the summer vegetables. Depending on what the weather does they may hang in there a little longer, or give up sooner, but the shortening days make it inevitable. 

Today's share has a big load of shallots. These are similar to onions but store much better and have a much more complex flavor. Also in the share are most of the same items that were in last Thursday's share: beans, basil, cilantro, lettuce, cucumbers, summer squash and tomatoes. Expect some changes this Thursday, but I'm not sure yet what they'll be.

Another different share

Once again the Thursday share differs quite a bit from Monday, but did I take a new photo? No. So you'll have to make do with this photo of the new deck on the cart and right behind that one of the last plantings of the year, a bit of frisee for fall.

Beans were ready today so I picked those and there were quite a few. The variety is Jade which is a new one for me and seems to have a very concentrated set. It's bit bigger than the slenderettes that were in the share a few weeks ago. Also, since dill was in last Thursday's share, and I cut the remainder on Monday I switched over to cilantro today, and the basil also needed a pinch so there's some of that too.

It's a busy weekend coming up. I'll be teaching at the first Small Farm School at Clackamas Community College on Saturday. The topic is farm tools, one of my favorites. My uncle and aunt are also coming to town for the first time since I've lived here (13 years now). I may have to slip in a quick farm tour to their agenda.

Labor Day on the farm

The joke on all of the farms I've ever worked on is that every day is Labor Day and this one is no different. Not that we don't support the idea of supporting organized labor, but the plants do continue to grow, even on holidays, and for a vegetable market farm this means there are some things that are scheduled for a reason, like certain harvests. Interestingly, I just looked up the origin of the holiday and Oregon was the first state to adopt it in 1887, seven years before it became a national holiday, according to Wikipedia.

Today's share did take quite a bit of labor. All of the potatoes are out of the ground now and are going into this weeks shares. The potato is Rose Finn Apple, a lovely fingerling and the size is good this year probably due to spacing them out a bit more than in the past. There is also the standard summer squash, lettuce, tomato triumvirate that has been in every week for I'm not sure how long now. I finally had a big enough cucumber harvest to give all of the shares at least one lemon cucumber. The plants are not looking good this year and I'm not sure why, maybe it's just not their year. Dill, which also went into last Thursday's share, rounds out todays bag. Deliveries to businesses is delayed until tomorrow but the shares at Near East Yoga and in St. Johns will be all set to go as usual.

It took me so long to dig the potatoes today that I didn't get anything else done. Since I won't have to do it on Thursday I'm hoping that'll be a good day for getting a few plants in the ground. Hope you're all enjoying your holidays.