When August turns to September, our minds turn to the shortening days, and the plantings to get in before the curtain closes. The light of the sun waxes and wanes every year, and there isn’t anything we can do about it. Nature is predictable in that way, and the annual transition to fall is one we enjoy.

This year we are pleased to have an ongoing supply of potatoes that will continue into the fall. We love fresh potatoes, and the varieties we have are perfect for country fries. Just cut your potato into skinny wedges or chunks, mix with dried herbs, salt and oil, and bake at 425 F until toasty.

And while there are only two of us, we regularly cook for four, and find our toaster oven to be the perfect appliance for a batch of potatoes. We chose it over a microwave for the great job it does baking, broiling, toasting and roasting, all without heating up the house. An indispensable tool.

This week the herbs return, and in a form we have not handed out before. Back at the start of our life on the farm we planted about 3 or so garlic chive plants on our patio. With no coaxing they have propagated well. You get dozen of seeds from each flower head, and so it appears we will always have garlic chive flowers.

They serve well as a garnish on such seasonal treats as potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers and more. Just pull the flower-heads off the stalks and sprinkle on your favorite dish.

Turns out that we are feeding more than just the soil at the farm, we are providing a bug banquet to the barn swallows every time we mow stuff down. It is a sight to see, as they swoop and flutter all around the tractor. They come so close. You can see their movements so well it makes you feel like you are in on the hunt.

One unique item in this week’s share will be the full’s choice of eggplant, cucumbers or ground cherries. These fruits are in the same family as tomatoes (Solanaeceae) and enjoy our hot summers. Ground cherries can be eaten raw or cooked.

To snack on one simply peel off the papery husk and pop it in your mouth. The flavor is sweet and somewhat tropical. You can cook them into a delicious jam too. They are not a regular item for the CSA but the five plants that we grew for fun are producing a lot of fruit at the moment.

For some of you this week the rattlesnake beans make an appearance. They are a delicious pole bean that graces the shares this time of year. Green with purple stripes, you will know them also by their nutty flavor. They do have one drawback though, as they develop a string along their edge when they size up. You will need to “string” your beans or cut them into 1-inch pieces. This idiosyncrasy brought one member to ask in last year’s survey, “why do you grow them?” Our answer, their unsurpassed flavor. Enjoy.

August is blowing by. The summer is only now trying to prove it was here this year by getting hot for a few days. Meteorologist Mike Thompson noted that this year will be the 10th coolest summer on record. That, coupled with a freeze on May 16th, has had a tough impact on many crops, the tomatoes especially.

But diversity wins out as, amazingly, it is the hot peppers that are peaking now. We grow several varieties, and there is a choice of three this week. They are crisp and fresh, and can add some real zest to a dish. All three type have about the same amount of hotness. To keep them milder you can clean out the seeds and veins before chopping.

part of the morning harvest

Most are familiar with the jalapenos. Cut them into rings and garnish a dish with their beautiful color and shape. Marinate them in some vinegar and oil for a day or two to “pickle” them.

Our variety NuMex Joe E. Parker is a large Anaheim type that is good for stuffing, roasting or chopping. It is the type of chili that is grown in the Hatch Valley of New Mexico.

The Hungarian hot wax are a good hot pepper to pickle in vinegar and then can for eating during the cold of winter. On a fresh basis they are good sliced into thin strips.

l. to r.: Hungarian hot wax. NuMex Joe E. Parker, El Jefe jalapeno.

Cool and wet remain the words of the summer this year. The moisture is welcome, but it hampers the field work. It is a mixed blessing in the high tunnel, where the sudan grass/cow pea cover crop is up to the rafters. We may have to put the roof on early to help dry it out so we can chop down this block of soil food.

Meanwhile, for our palates the selection is a great summer mix. It’s a good week to search the fridge and accumulate any goodies you may have. Got too many sweet onions? Chop up 5 or 6 and slowly caramelize them. Freeze what you don’t use as a quick addition to future meals.

A green bean, potato and onion hash is a dish suited to these cool days and nights. I encourage you to check out this link to our Week 9 newsletter from 2007. The farm news on the front is pre-Rocky and pre-underground irrigation system. It was a fun read for me. I was wondering what members might remember these times and, by my account, 25 shares have been around since them. They will remember it as the year our lone farm apprentice was Libby Negus.

Not too much more tonight, as the last several days have included scoping, testing and negotiating for a used delivery vehicle to take the baton from Sweetpea. We are in the final stages of procuring an average white van. One with air bags, air conditioning, and a radio—fancy. Hope to get through the remaining hoops soon.

Sunday morning began with a surprise as thunder accompanied the dawn. About 1-3/4 inches of rain fell and has given the fields a good soaking. We will be trying to get into them quickly before it rains again, as the soil has wonderful texture right now.

The onions continue to amaze this year. We will be handing out the Walla Walla’s until they are gone. Their sweetness reduces their storage life, so they are the first to go. They are so sweet you can use them raw and be glad you did. We will be following up with red ones, and then some storage types late in the season.

Onions curing in the barn

Tomatoes are peaking, so take advantage. This week the fulls get some Roma tomatoes, aka plum tomatoes. Good for sauce making, they are also a great addition to a tomato sauce. When making pasta this time of year I often will blanch some tomatoes in the boiling spaghetti water, cool them, peel them, and chop them. Prepared this way they will add a certain “fineness” to your sauce.

Blanched and chopped tomatoes

Flying through July this year. The tomatoes are kicking in, there’s lots of sunshine, the barn is bulging with onions and garlic, and we try to stay one step ahead of exhaustion. July is when we try to make ourselves believe the hump is being crested.

The cukes are slowing down, so enjoy them while you can. Among the recipes folks have posted on our group page are bread and butter pickles and chilled cucumber soup. Off the old blog posts there’s always tabouleh. From a past newsletter there is the tasty garlicy tomato and bread gratin, and on the same page is a potato/onion hash recipe.

Kraut is on the bulk list again. We are trying to gauge interest in fermented products to see if scaling up is worth it. If you haven’t tried sauerkraut in awhile, now is the time to get some. We made it especially for the membership, so give us your two cents.

Tomatillos destined for salsa packs

Out in the fields the feeding continues. The cowpeas and sudan grass in the high tunnel are growing well. A week or so more and we will mow it down and turn it under. The soil is hungry.

The last big wave of activity for the season is upon us as we begin preparing for fall and winter. We keep the weeding, trellising, mowing and harvesting going while we work to plant the fall vegetables and summer cover crops. On the plate it is the onions and potatoes that dominate.

Since our Week 8 blog we have purchased a julienne slicer and are using it regularly to make zucchini and eggplant noodles. This handy-as-can-be gadget can turn a jumbo zucchini into the equivalent of a box of spaghetti in no time.

Another use of the noodles is in a slaw. Simply mix them with some thinly sliced onions and grated carrots. Add some salt and pepper, your favorite slaw dressing, and it is a raw delight. Some finally chopped hot peppers, or pepperoncini rings are a good addition.

We have had good comments from those of you that have tried the kraut. Here in our kitchen we find it the perfect filling for a Reubenesque sandwich. Our version of this meatless reuben has a combo of Skyview Farms and Goatsbeard farm cheeses—Colby and Pitzicato respectively. A roasted hot pepper per sandwich seals the deal. Yum.

The makings of a Reubenesque

We continue to be amazed at what the fields here at the farm can produce. For the first time since 2008 we are flush with moisture. While making it hard to get into the field, the rain has also caused quite a flourish of some vegetables.

Eggplant and peppers are two examples. When we have a surplus of these veggies we simply fire up the broiler and cook away. The savory combo of sweet onions and eggplant rounds can be the basis of lots of tasty dishes.

Broiled onions and eggplant

Tonight we let them cool, chopped them up, and added them to a burrito. The rounds are also a nice slice to add to sandwiches. If you are too busy to use them right away, simple freeze them for later.

Another great dish for those many, many cucumbers you are getting is gazpacho. We did a primer on this Andalusian dish back in 2010. It offers good advice for making an authentic version.

And it is now salsa pack season, as the tomatillos start to fruit and fill out. Our recipes for fresh salsa and roasted salsa are in our past blogs, just follow the links.

Onions drying in the barn

Work began on the project last September when we planted a cover crop of rye grass and hairy vetch. The rye/vetch came up well in Spring 2014, despite the extremely cold winter and a dry April & May. 

Rolling/Crimping
By mid-May the rye/vetch was four feet tall and flowering.  Normally, we would mow down the cover crop and then incorporate it into the soil with our tillage equipment, a Tortella spader.  For the SARE grant we are experimenting with using the roller on our flail mower to “roll down” the rye/vetch mix to create a mulch that we can plant directly into.  The primary benefit of this system is that it requires less hand labor and tractor-time to achieve the same results as spading a bed and then hand-mulching it.

We are doing a side-by-side comparison of the two techniques.  We rolled rye/vetch area on May 16 and it went well, creating a beautiful, spongy carpet of greenery.

Mowed block on left. Block to be rolled/crimped on right

Rolling/crimping the rye/vetch

Freshly rolled and crimped rye/vetch

Summer Tomato Planting
The beds described above are for our fall brassica plantings. We also ran a test bed for our mid-summer planting of tomatoes.  Half of a 200 ft. bed was rolled/crimped and the other half was mowed and spaded.

These beds proved problematic in June as they are located in a bit of a dip in the fields, and we received 10 inches of rain over the first 3 weeks of the month, making it difficult to do any planting or spading. But we did what we could, and right now things look good, although we couldn’t plant the middle portion of the bed due to the mud.

The rolled area of this bed did a good job of keeping down weeds and required less than 10 minutes of weeding with four people. The plants have been caged and are beginning to grow.

Summer tomato plants in rolled/crimped beds. Mowed and spaded are at far end of bed

Pre-Planting Status of Brassica Beds
By June we had spaded the mowed bed and observed the vetch growing back in the rolled down beds. Subsequent re-rolling did not kill the vetch and so it was mowed off and eventually died.

Re-growth of vetch in rolled bed. Spaded bed on left.

Rolled bed with vetch mowed off.

Unfortunately, we are suffering from a profusion of bind weed on our farm, and while here in July the rye/vetch mulch has held up well, the bed will be in need of a serious weeding within the next couple weeks. This will be coinciding with the initiation of our fall brassica plantings.

Bind weed coming through the mulch

The adjacent beds were spaded twice and harrowed once to keep down weeds and try to form a “stale seed bed.” All this work was done during the aforementioned wet June and more recent wet early July.

NTPA No. 1

The tomatoes are starting and we hope continuing for much of the rest of the season. Along with the cukes, zukes, onions, peppers and eggplant the summer planting is flourishing. The potatoes are the perfect topping to this abundance. We are looking forward to them being in the shares every other week for awhile.

Perhaps my favorite potato dish is fried with onions and peppers. I have learned the trick of steaming everything before frying to obtain the perfect texture. This weeks potatoes, a combo of Red Pontiac and Purple Viking, really make this dish.

Another item this week is garlic. We only recently dug this pungent allium from the ground, and it does best if it is dried back for about a month. This share’s garlic is only 2 weeks old, but still plenty edible. We suggest that you use it within the next couple weeks.

freshly dug garlic

We also are continuing to keep up with our cover cropping schedule, recently seeding numerous beds with a combo of cowpeas and sudan grass. These seedings came up well, and bode well for future crops.

cowpeas and sudan grass at sunrise