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Dear Friends,
Here we are in August and things are cranking. At this point in the season we have a pretty good sense of where we stand in terms of crop conditions for both the summer crops and moving forward into the fall crops. It seems to be an appropriate time for a progress report from the fields.
Well right now we are at the summit of vegetable mountain and what a view it is from up here. So far the season has had its ups and downs but one thing we can say for sure is that it has been abundant!! It is an amazing amount of food that rolls in and out of share barn every day and it seems like that pattern will continue for the foreseeable future.
The peppers and eggplant are producing like never before and the fruit is all gorgeous and very high quality. We'll be bringing in our favorite sweet peppers very soon (the italias). If you've never had them you are in for a treat. They are elongated red peppers that are incredibly sweet. Speaking of sweet... what a year it has been so far for the melons. Both the watermelon and cantaloupe crop have exceeded our expectations pumping out huge harvests every other day.
More tomatoes are arriving on the scene each time we pick and we are now picking some of the heirloom varieties. We planted our tomato crop about 2 weeks later than usual this year (remember when it wouldn't stop raining in May???) so we did expect that the harvest would be a little delayed. There is a whole lot of unripe fruit on those plants though so we do expect a good tomato year that is hopefully not shortened by disease.
Last week for the first time in our 5 year history here we didn't have salad greens for the share. This was a result of missing a few seedings about 1 month ago when we were getting continuously pounded by rain. The greens drought may only last 1 week but it could potentially be a little longer depending on how fast our next 2 seedings grow.
The fresh onion crop this year wasn't as great as we hoped... we do however have what looks like a great storage onion crop that we'll be pulling out of the field early next week to cure in the greenhouse for September distribution. Storage onions need a curing period in order for them to store well. The curing period is simply allowing their necks to seal up to prevent moisture and pathogens from entering and rotting the onion.
All in all the fall crops look pretty good. The winter squash field looks nothing short of incredible right now as all the rows are growing into each other and the field is "sealed up" as we like to say (meaning you all you can see is a blanket of squash foliage covering up all the soil and fruit). We haven't had a squash field as weed free as this year's... maybe ever. Our fall carrots came up pretty thin in spots but we did over plant because at the time of seeding conditions were less than ideal (It was dry as a bone and we planted them on sandy soil). I have faith in our contingency plan and I'm sure we'll still be ok in the fall carrot department. Most of the rest of the root crops...sweet potatoes, beets, rutabaga, celeriac are doing well so far with the exception of the potatoes and parsnips.
The potato crop will be below average this year as a result of early season flooding in one of our rented fields. Some of the plants actually drowned and the sections of the field that did not flood have faced heavy weed competition (it was just simply too wet in there at some critical points where we needed to get in and cultivate but couldn't). Our fall broccoli family crops all look pretty good...though they are weedy (who knew it would be hard to have a baby in July and keep the farm running??).
Probably the most challenging area of the farm for us this year has been the u-pick crops. Most of the crops have been good but the weeds have been difficult to keep up with (so thanks for bearing with us on that and taking a few extra minutes to hunt for your beans). There were a few succession plantings of beans, herbs, and flowers that we missed either due to the wet weather in May and June or the dry weather in July. The u-pick tomatoes (sauce tomatoes in particular) have been hit pretty hard with septoria leaf spot and alternaria. Those are two tomato diseases that occur just about every year but this year it is happening earlier and is more severe. As a result the sauce tomatoes won't be as good as we were hoping but hopefully there will be enough to put by a few jars at least.
The year so far has been one we'll always remember. Challenging; mainly on a personal level. But once again diversity in the share and in our diets has been a product of diversity in the field. Each of us plays a role in creating diversity in the lives of one another. Together we keep this whole farm organism breathing and for that we should all be thankful!
A special thanks to two members of our farm crew that are leaving us. Ben Schenkel and Maryn Carlson who have been working their tails off all summer are headed back to school for the fall. Ben will be back at UMASS and Maryn is headed back to Cornell. Maryn is getting school credit for her work on the farm and will be handing out a survey this week during the share as part of her project (If you can spare a minute... help Maryn out by filling out a survey). Thanks so much to Maryn and Ben for all of their hard work and dedication. We'll miss you guys!!!
Enjoy the harvest!
On behalf of the farm Crew (Olivia, Max, Jason, Sarah, and Maryn)
Your Farmers Meghan and Rob (and Cayden!)
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