SWEET PEPPERS F/P A big bag for everyone. See Tom’s post for easy ways to use them/preserve them.
HOT PEPPERS F/P A selection of jalapenos, Anaheims and hot wax.
EGGPLANT F We picked baby eggplant in case we had frost.
CARROTS F/P More snack-size ones.
ONIONS F storage yellows and reds.
LEEKS F/P The white part of the leeks are very nice this year – so long they barely fit in the crates!
GREENS CHOICE F Swiss chard, kale or bok choy
GOLD BALL TURNIPS W/TOPS F These are great stewing or roasting turnips. Like most roots they store best without their tops, so separate them before you refrigerate them.
TURNIPS AND RADISHES P
TOMATO F
NEXT WEEK: More cauliflower, broccoli, turnips, lettuce and greens. Potatoes, garlic and beets. New: the first of the bulb fennel.
FARM REPORT: An extraordinary week has passed that included a five inch rainstorm, the threat of frost and Tom away at his niece’s wedding. All went well as the farm crew kicked into high gear to make it happen. See Tom’s photo of the bride escorted by her Tom’s sister, Fran and husband Woody. Congratulations to Barbara and Mike!
Last week I mentioned how lucky we are to work in the beautiful outdoors with rainbows overhead and such. Three days later we get this lovely sight…
After two days of rain, the forecast for Friday night fell to 36 deg. F. Not knowing for sure if a frost was coming or not, we decided to bulk harvest the peppers, eggplants and tomatoes and pull out the row cover for the lettuces, fennel, chard and herbs. Saturday morning came with only frost on the roof, but not in the fields. All of our work is not in vain as we are now well-prepared for the next time frost threatens.
Temporary covers protected the crops in the high tunnel during the frost scare, but by Monday we were ready to put the real cover on. It is always exciting to play with a 40′ x 100′ piece of plastic. This time went much better than last year. The biggest change is that we are using a single layer instead of a double layer. This makes it a lot lighter and easier to attach. Also, less plastic!
YELLOW ONIONS F/P We are very proud of our onion crop this year. This week we begin to share with you these big beautiful yellow ones, which are also our best keepers.
CARROTS F/P
GREENS F Turnip greens, kale or maybe some rapini (broccoli raab) by Saturday.
SWEET PEPPER F/P
EGGPLANT, SALSA PACK OR GROUND CHERRIES F
TOMATOES F/P Just one or two or some cherry tomatoes
HOT PEPPERS F/P See Tom’s post on roasting the Anaheims
HERB CHOICE F Chives, parsley or a dried herb
NEXT WEEK: A few more summer fruits: peppers, tomatoes, eggplant along with potatoes, garlic, bok choy, kohlrabi and lettuce.
FARM REPORT: The summer harvest is dwindling and the fall crops are just starting to produce. During the transition from one season to the next, the shares will be lighter. Less time harvesting means more time to tend to the crops. Today we tackled the broccoli and cauliflower beds.
On Monday we pulled the chicken coop down the row a pace to some fresh crabgrass. Unfortunately, we are really good at growing crabgrass. Lucky for us the chickens love it and it is fun to see them stripping the stems of those pesky seeds. You can see in the photo that they did a fabulous job of cleaning up their old spot in just three short weeks.
CAULIFLOWER OR BROCCOLI (F/P) These plants withstood a lot of heat late into their maturing season, but some are bulking up fairly well. A hearty thank you to the CSA members who got the weeds in check last week! We hope to have both for several more weeks.
TOMATOES (F/P) Today was the last big picking of tomatoes with most of the hybrid reds ripe and the heirlooms dwindling. The paste or Roma tomatoes will keep coming for a while.
LETTUCE (F/P) Mostly green crispheads that can take some summer heat.
KOHLRABI (F/P) We tasted one today and we were happy we did – very tender and juicy was the result.
BEETS (F/P) The beets are going bonkers out there – they grew to a large size while we were occupied on other things. Don’t worry, they are still sweet and tender.
SWEET PEPPERS (F/P) Loads more of these big beauties this week.
GREENS CHOICE (F) Several of our fall greens are sizing up. You’ll have a choice of kale, rapini or broccoli raab, or Swiss Chard.
HERB CHOICE (F/P) Basil, marjoram and thai basil.
ROMA TOMATOES (F)
CHERRY TOMATOES (P)
NEXT WEEK: More tomatoes, peppers, broccoli and cauliflower. Sweet potatoes, cabbage and garlic.
FARM REPORT:
Two and a half inches of rain soaked in well. The soil is loose, full of worms and a pleasure to dig into. A sure sign of fall, we dug the first sweet potatoes on Saturday. They are curing in the greenhouse and should be in the shares next week. Tom has flail-mowed the sorghum sudan cover crop that many of you saw at the farm in the past few weeks. That’s next year’s fertility which will be turned into the soil later this week.
In 2007 we reached our 5-year goal of 100 members. It was an accomplishment we were proud of, and it established a good economic base for the future. The next step…was figuring out the next step.
A rare chance to skate on the old pond in February
Exterior work on the farmhouse before the season starts
Pre-season Core Goup meeting at Kelly and Rick’s
We decided to approach the season as if we were starting fresh. We pretended that all the work in the previous years had been done by a different couple we called Rachel (a common misnomer for Rebecca) and Joseph (my middle name). For all the good things we saw on the farm we thanked them, and for all the things that broke or had to be redone we sighed and assigned them the blame.
St. Patricks Day was spent working on the barn, fixing the east loafing shed roof and walls with the help of fellow farmer Tom Parker and members Jim Markley and Victoria Wert. Working on a barn with the farm community is always fun.
Jim Markley, Tom Parker and Rebecca
Weather again played a unique role in the season, as it was the year of the “Easter freeze.” After the third warmest March on record with literally everything blooming, the buds of Spring were killed off by two overnights of record low temperatures in the upper teens.
We fulfilled our contractual obligation to the CSA, doing everything in our power to protect the many beds of plants we had out in the fields by covering them with up to 3 layers of row cover. All the while we were battling high winds and the urge to take a shortcut or two. Our efforts paid off, as by June much of the broccoli we had protected headed up beautifully.
Row cover mid-April
Spring broccoli
The combination of high winds and temperatures in the teens made keeping the row cover on a never-ending chore for us and Libby Negus, who started her apprenticeship with us that week. Working hard at the farm, moonlighting at Green Acres Market, and going to school to become a Montessori teacher kept her busy that year.
Picking peas with Libby (photo by Lorne Carroll)
April was also when we planted the strawberry patch. Members had voiced their opinion in our yearly survey that they wanted us to add berries to the shares. We felt that strawberries were the best choice, as they are sturdier than bramble fruit and, based on earlier trials, seemed to grow well here.
Strawberry patch humble beginnings 4/19/07
In general, 2007 was a good year for the crops. The tomato harvest topped 5,000 lbs and we picked over 5,000 individual summer squash. We planted some of the potatoes where we had run the chickens the year before and had our best yields to date. Beans, carrots, and the Fall brassicas were standouts.
Happy lettuce harvest led by 2013 apprentice-to-be Lorne Carroll and long-time member Betty Marcus
Picking summer squash
Members with the harvest
Thanks to the scarcity of wild fruit after the Easter freeze, the raccoons and opossums feasted on our successes in the field. We used a live trap to catch more than 30 racoons that summer, sometimes catching two at a time. They seem cute, but I will tell you that picking up a metal cage with a snarling wild animal in it at sunrise wakes you up for the day, and gets you thinking of alternative methods of predator control.
One of many
In June my Mother passed away. She was a grand lady, the source of my German blood, and a role model like no other. I’m glad Rebecca had a chance to make her aquaintance.
Mom would have been thrilled that August, as we were honored as the Clay County Farm Family of the Year. We have the local University of Missouri Extension Council to thank for nominating us for the award, and recogznizing a sustainable farming operation for the honor. They won us a free trip to the State Fair to pick up the award, where the orators noted that “farmers are the backbone of democracy.” That’s us! Love that quote.
We had a great Fall harvest with little to no frost until late in November.
Fall cauliflower
The year ended with more home remodeling before heading to Italy in December. We visited Rome, then took the train to the southern tip of the continent, Calabria, the ancestral home of the Ruggieri’s.
Working on the back porch
In Calabria…the land of Persephone
Next up…electrifying the G, strawberry bonanza, Rocky, solar irrigation, adding mulch, and toooooo wettttt!
CAULIFLOWER (F) One of my favorite crops and not the easiest to grow. We should have cauliflower for another few weeks.
LEEKS (F/P) I am so ready for some luscious leeks to enter our fall kitchen. See Farmer Tom’s post for more about them.
LETTUCE (F/P) More of the heat-tolerant crisp heads for a satisfying crunch.
RADISHES (F/P) We have three different kinds of radishes ready in the fields and we plan to pick them all for your choosing. Partial shares get a choice of radishes or turnips.
HAKUREI TURNIPS (F) The farm crew’s favorite snack in the field right out of the ground.
TOMATOES (F) Your farmers are debating whether it is time to begin the dismantling of the patch. So far the plants are producing just enough good ripe fruit to keep us from our task but their time is running out.
EGGPLANT OR OKRA (P) A light frost on Sunday morning spared the tender summer fruits for the most part. Only the basil was significantly damaged.
SWEET PEPPERS (P) Mostly purple peppers along with some ripe types.
CABBAGE OR KOHLRABI (F) Choose your ball of brassica (reminds me of the “choose your ball of cucurbit” of a few weeks back). The kohlrabi is a fall variety that gets pretty big but stays tender.
ARUGULA (F) A bit of spice for your salad.
HERB CHOICE (F) Garlic chives, parsley, thyme or hot peppers
NEXT WEEK: More eggplant, peppers, okra, radishes, turnips and cauliflower. Sweet potatoes and a greens choice.
FARM REPORT:
At Fair Share Farm the planting season starts in early February when we seed the onions in the greenhouse. From then on we keep planting so that we have a succession of crops that keeps the CSA shares well stocked with a good assortment of crops. Only now in late September are we at the point where we can stop planting. The last seeds to go in the ground were planted in the high tunnel this week. It is now filled with young lettuces, arugula, beets, turnips, endive, spinach, bok choy, bulb fennel and chard.
We have also been spending a lot of hours tending to the many rows of fall roots that somehow managed to sprout and grow during the peak of the summer drought. We have 2200 row feet of carrots and each plant must be weeded and thinned by hand within the rows. Luckily our Allis Chalmers G tractor takes care of the weeds growing in between the rows. On Monday we moved all of the irrigation tape out of the path and the “G” and I did some serious weed-killing.
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