What’s in the box?

Beets, salad greens, choice of green onions or radishes, hot peppers, zucchini, fresh herbs.

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What isn’t in the box?

Tomatoes are about finished – we might attempt to pick a few for market on Saturday, but the quantity and quality are both dropping fast! The plants are weary, the fruit cracked in the rain last night, and the flavor is diminishing.

We have harvested our winter squash but the yield is low! Especially disappointing is that we harvested none of the large heirloom squashes that are so much fun – and very popular at the farmers’ market. Amy was able to buy some squash from Pineview Orchards (who supplied the fruit for our CSA), but their crop is also small. Talking with other growers, it seems this is a bad squash year all around. We hope to have enough for the CSA box next week (and perhaps for Fall CSA once or twice?).

Picking squash.

Eggplant blossoms.

Growing eggplant was interesting this year. Eggplant prefers hot weather, but the intense heat this summer was too much for them. The plants dropped all their blossoms, and after we picked the early fruit, they were bare. We started harvesting in early July and finished about a month later. Now, the plants are finally blooming again with lovely purple flowers! We probably won’t harvest much more fruit since the temperatures aren’t warm enough, but it’s fascinating to see how the plants responded to the weather.

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Around the farm this week …

Here is the field that rested this summer. Instead of vegetables it grew a cover crop of oats, peas, radishes, clover … We mowed it several times and allowed it to regrow. This adds organic matter to the soil. This past week we mowed it one last time and then disced it down. After spreading manure & compost over the field it was seeded again to a similar cover crop mixture which will grow and protect the soil over the winter months. Next spring we will work it in again and then grow our vegetables here. The half inch of rain we received last night will help these seeds germinate and give them a good start!

The dahlia patch is finally blooming in abundance!

Mixing cover crop seeds.