Tomatoes

It's been a bit odd the way things have been ripening this year. Today I pulled in a good harvest of tomatoes so the shares are leaning pretty heavily that way. I'm not sure how many there'll actually be for Thursday, we'll see what happens in the next few days. This hot weather is good for us right now, for the most part. The share also has cucumbers, which are appreciating the heat, but it's light on summer squash and a few folks won't get any this week. Our summer squash was really set back by the cold early on and it may never recover. Lettuce continues, mostly Blushed Butter Cos today, but a little Pirat as well. Fennel is back in the share, as well as a bit of parsley. The fennel is very young and will go great in a cold salad, very thinly sliced. The tops can be mixed with other salad greens as well. The parsley would be great chopped and sauteed with those potatoes from last week, or the Shallots from this week. Did I mention that I pulled all of the shallots today? These will keep for months if you don't use them right away, but they're good eating now as well. They're a bit like a mild onion and are often used similarly to garlic to add flavor.

The best news today is that we caught up on planting, and we're actually getting very close to being finished with plantings all together for the year. That means we can start to concentrate on cleaning up some weeds and getting cool season cover crops seeded in the beds that are finished.

A Bit Like Monday

From SHF 2011

Very productive day on the farm today and the shares look quite a bit like Monday's so no photo or notes. I guess I will say that the cool week slowed down the summer squash and cucumbers, which was to be expected, so those quantities are a little lower. Last Thursday they were higher than they had been on Monday so these things kind of work themselves out.

The photo is of a bed of spinach we just transplanted. That, three beds of sprouting broccoli, and nearly a bed of radicchio got in the ground today. We're a bit late planting all of that so hope for a long warm fall. At this point we're really close to catching up on all of the plantings. Maybe it'll happen next week and then we can start concentrating on getting cover crops in.

Fall Pizza Party and Potluck

From SHF 2011

The spring and summer pizza parties were excellent.

We've been having seasonal pizza parties with the wood fired oven on the farm. We'll be having the next one on Saturday, September 17 from 1-3pm. Anyone who wants a tour of the farm or to help clean up the fields a little should come out early. Bring your own plates and utensils and a dish to share if you like. Please don't bring pets, and we'd love it if folks tried to carpool or ride bikes. Hope for good weather so we can picnic on the lawn, otherwise we'll be in the barn again. Email us if you need more details.

Heavy

When the shares have lots of greens, like in the spring, we can fit five shares in a box and I can carry three boxes at a time. Today I could only get three in a box and I can barely cary two boxes, it must be summer. The heat last weekend helped ripen some tomatoes and cucumbers so we're heavy on those today. The summer squash continues to limp along after a rough start earlier this summer, and I've supplemented with a bit of the extra that Kji has in his plantings (trading him for some extra lettuce). The lettuce looks beautiful right now and today we harvested some Jester and some Pirat, crisp and butter, so one or the other is in the share. I cleared a half bed of Napoli carrots and we dug the first of two varieties of potatoes, Russian Banana. They came out very small for the most part, although they are supposed to be a small fingerling. The benefit here is that you don't have to cut them up, you can just boil them whole, and then pan fry them with a bit of oil, salt and paprika. Or you could do something else if that doesn't sound good. Finally, I also did a harder pinch on the basil today so there's a nice handful in there, perhaps enough to flavor a bit of aioli for the potatoes?

Heat!

Today's share is basically like Monday's, so no new photo or notes to pass on. This is what summer should be like, and it looks like it'll stick around at least through the weekend. We're finally getting a few more ripe tomatoes and cucumbers. I'm hoping they're not peaking too late and that a bit more heat will perk them up. Maybe the heat will help the peppers and eggplant which have just been poking along, hardly doing anything. I think it's a bit late for the melons, which also got in the ground late and needed some early heat to speed them up if they were going to make it.

Kji and I were wilting in the sun this afternoon, but we're really happy for the plants. It's not actually that hot out, we're just not used to these temperatures after all of the cool working weather we've had this year. Folks in other parts of the country will laugh when they hear that we're too hot when the high isn't even 90, but for us, this year, that's some serious heat.

Beets and onions

Beets and onions in the share today, along with cucumbers, a few tomatoes, summer squash, lettuce and just a pinch of basil and oregano. The onions are cipollini and will keep very well if you don't use them right away. The beets are kestrel, which I grow because I like their flavor, although they have less consistent shape and size than others. The greens are also good on the beets so use them like you would chard. The cucumbers are starting to produce a few more. I really like the flavor of the lemon cucumbers and I actually like the large seed cavity which has a bit of sweet. The tomatoes are very, very slowly starting to increase their production, although that might have just been due to the warm weekend. We're growing sungold and sweetie cherry tomatoes, juane flamme (organge), black prince (dark), and moscovich (red) so I hope you'll see a bit of a rotation in your bags which will let you try them all. Similarly with summer squash we have zucchini as well as patti pans and some bags get one, some another. The basil and oregano are just little pinches due to renovation of the plants. They're just enough to flavor a bit of dressing for the vegetables, certainly no pesto making to be done. With the herbs you can always dry them by hanging if you aren't going to use them immediately. This way they'll keep for a while.

Another delicious summer dinner

After floating the Sandy today I had an unusual (for me) appetite for fish. I picked up the boxes and return bags (thanks for returning so many this Thursday, folks), and there were two shares left. After swinging by the store on the way home and picking up a little line caught cod I thought a little vegetable fish stew was in order, along with some risotto.

I basically chunked up the carrots and summer squash, leaving a little carrot to dice for the risotto. I cooked those with half a small onion I had leftover and diced the rest of that for the risotto as well. After sauteing the carrot, squash and onion in a bit of olive oil I added all of the cherry tomatoes, quartered and a bit of water, salt and a few diced sage leaves. As soon as that started cooking I put chunks of the cod in, covered the pan and cooked that medium low until the fish was finished.

The risotto was simple with just the carrot and onion sauteed, then a bit of parsley and olive oil added, then the rice and all of the liquid at once, and a bit of salt. I use a pressure cooked for risotto which make is super simple and requires no stiring - only taking about 10 minutes total.

A last minute addition was to chop up the lemon cucs and toss them with a bit of the dill and some plain yogurt. Super tasty meal, which once again I have no photo of.