Hope you all have enjoyed the fresh, organically raised produce this season. Wanted to remind you again–we had no corn…The deer got it all! The Farmer watched a buck bound over an 8 foot electric fence, two lines deep–quite a sight to see! They also chewed down the tops of the purple sweet potatoes, but we dug one yesterday and found a small tuber an inch in diameter. Maybe a taste?
For this week: We are harvesting peppers in earnest and will continue to harvest tomatoes--new variety this week called Indigo Cherry Drops. Celery and eggplant will be on the Extra’s table until season’s end if not included in a share for the week. Of course, eggplant passes with the first killing frost.
This week Mulligan Stew kits for the Thursday Pick Up group; Hope the delivery groups enjoyed theirs–here’s a good social activity: Make a batch of Stew and invite family, friends, or the neighbors! Carrots, more fingerlings and potatoes, broccoli, red cabbage, onions, and parsley for this week. AND–OMG! I forgot we have Red Beets, more Kohlrabi, Daikons, and Scarlet and Hakurei turnips–giants I am sure…but we will be entering turnip soup season, fermented and pickled Daikon radish season, and roasted beets in the oven season. We’ll be working those into the shares in the remaining weeks.
No more Cantaloupe–it is finished; Watermelons are all harvested and will be for sale for a couple more weeks during Thursday Pick Up–4:30 to 6:00. Cold weather will enhance the Brussels sprouts and Deadon 105 day cabbage. Not sure the 500 heads of Storage No 4 and Ruby Perfection will make it…they were undersized when planted mid-July.
We have row-covered the sweet potatoes…this has been a challenging year for them: too cool at night and too cool during this last month. They are southern grown and require a long, hot season. We have been fortunate the past couple of years by raising them under black plastic, but each year is different. We’ll leave them in the ground as long as possible, but frost can change that. With Sweet Potatoes the frost is carried from the leaves into the tubers–we’ve read you have two days to get them out of the ground after a frost. We will see!
Our season goal is 16 weeks of produce– this will take us into the third week in October. Depending on the weather, we may move the pick up location into town. Stay tuned to http://www.lloydcraftfarms.com for posts of venue changes. The CSA could end sooner if we run out of stuff (unlikely) or the weather gets so miserable that we can’t dig and distribute (more likely). October produce may not be as clean if we can not hose them down–we work outdoors–but they will still be sorted and bagged for quality and convenience. Hang in there!
That’s all for now, folks! The Farmer’s Wife