You know it’s wet when …

… the puddles on the farm never seem to dry up,

… the vegetables are growing – but not as well as the weeds (find the onions to the right in the picture!),

 

… you have not had to water the pots of herbs in the yard for almost a week,

… the new patch of kohlrabi is ready to pick – except it is mostly cracked & rotting,

… the tomatoes are just starting to produce, but the plants are already dying,

… 5 days out of the last week had rain (and it hailed twice)!

You know it’s wet … when you no longer lament all the vegetables that are diseased, rotting & dying, but instead are amazed (and thankful) at those vegetables that are still looking healthy & doing well.

What’s in the box?

Blackberries, tomatoes, beans, beets, garlic, onions & zucchini.

• The first taste of blackberries is in the box this week. We only have 2 rows of blackberries – but they are one of our most important crops. This season especially, we are hanging our hopes on the blackberries. They look outstanding so far & we’re optimistic that the harvest will be long & fruitful!

• As mentioned above, the tomato plants are failing rapidly even though we have barely begun the harvest. Fingers crossed that their growth outpaces the diseases and they keep producing – at least for a while. Find some cherry tomatoes in your share & perhaps a larger slicing tomato as well.
• The beans this week will be mostly dragon’s tongue – a flat, yellow bean with purple stripes. We started growing these beans years ago, because of the name & their beautiful looks. We continue to grow them for their great taste – better than any green bean in my opinion!
• We are cleaning up the first planting of beets. The size might be varied, and the greens are not too good anymore but the beets still taste good. The next patch is ready & will have some yellow beets too. The final planting – we just transplanted them last week – is growing well. It includes dark red beets, yellow beets & the candy-striped beets. So there should be beets on & off for the remainder of our CSA program.

• How was the fresh garlic? We are including another bulb this week. Remember – it is not yet dried. Store it at room temperature in a spot with good air circulation.
• Onions grow best in sunny, moist, weed-free conditions. We’re doing really great with the moisture, so-so with the sun but very poorly with the weeds. The result is that the onions are not getting much bigger. But we have lots of this very useful & delicious vegetable.
• The zucchini plants continue to amaze me. While they are producing very few zucchini – most plants have wilted & are dying – many are throwing out new vines with fresh green leaves and even blossoms. Will they turn into fruit or will disease overtake them first? We’ll find out! But we do have several new plantings of zucchini coming soon.

Please remember to return all containers – big & small – so we can reuse them.

Here’s hoping for a warm, sunny (rain-free) week!