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~ In the Box ~
Week 16 ~ Monday, July 30
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~ A la Carte ~
Our a la carte store is well stocked with sunflower oil, eggs, maple syrup, honey, and our own salsas, preserves, soups, and more. Log in with your email and password to see what's being offered for delivery with your CSA. We'll update it as needed, so check back often.
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~ Recipes ~
To counteract the bug photos, how about some inspiring eggplant ideas? For more information about purslane and recipe ideas, check out our website. |
Questions?
Robin (in Chicago)
708-370-8017
or
Chris (farmer/owner)
608-712-1585
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Check out our
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Storage Tip: Remove the basil from its bag tonight and let it sit and dry off a bit before re-bagging it for storage. Or leave it loose in the fridge if you'll be using it within a day or two. Though it's dirty, best not to wash it until you're about to use it.
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Things seem about as normal as can be after all the stress we've experienced trying to plant, irrigate, harvest, and pack CSA boxes during the recent heat waves. We even got a few thousand dollars of tomatoes to farmers markets this past weekend--and
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Potato beetle on an eggplant leaf
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the extra money really helps given all we've had to spend this year. Our $20,000 cooler project in particular, along with all the crops we lost due to heat and insect/disease pressure, and the resultant replanting, have left us a little tight on money. But we're doing okay. Several CSA farms have skipped a week due to insufficient crops, and we're very happy to have been able to avoid borrowing from the future in this way. We'd like to have seen a little more variety the past few weeks, but overall we've had enough produce to pack and that's great news. Most responses from customers have been very positive, telling us we shouldn't worry as much about value and consistency in
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Potato beetle larvae
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the face of variable weather. Thanks for your patience --it will be rewarded if you stay with us long term. The bottom line is that we could have done better even considering the weather. What we learned/experienced will help us do better in future weather extremes.
To briefly recap this year's hot weather, we are on a track to have by far the warmest year since records have been maintained--1869--in Madison. The current record 'warmest years' are separated by tenths of a degree, and we're currently 2.5 degrees ahead of the record year (1921). Here's a link that shows the numbers I've been giving you. It's supposed to stay warm and dry, but not quite as hot. A couple 90's in this week's forecast, with 80's the rest of the time. It's supposed to remain dry, with ourdrought status currently in the extreme category. Only 'exceptional' on the National Weather Service scale is drier. We've had a few light rains that should
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Stink bug, a predator of the larvae
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prevent us from reaching that status, but not nearly enough rain to do anything more than give us a day or two break from irrigating. The eggplant you're receiving is in pretty good shape but might have healed-over scars from some insect damage. Lizann has taken some beautiful pictures of the culprits: the potato beetle has found its way over to the eggplant leaves; the stink bug is a predator of potato beetle larvae. Ah, the circle of life! Responses to purslane in the box last week were good, and honestly that's what I expected. It's loaded with nutrients, has a nice and different texture than most anything else we grow, and has a fairly mild taste
(compared to some greens like mustards and arugula, and even hot weather lettuce that can get bitter). One thing we learned is that purslane doesn't last long or store very well. We picked it last week Monday and by Thursday it was starting to wilt, so if you're a Thursday delivery you might have experienced our problem. We'll watch it closer this week and do better. Unfortunately, this purslane is a weed in our peppers and eggplants and must eventually be completely removed, so this is the last week we'll include it.
Well, I started off by saying things were feeling almost normal around here, and the rest of the box helps explain why. There are lots of usual summer crops like eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, basil, garlic, and onions. Many of you will see the last carrots from our spring planting. Sounds like a very nice summer veggie pasta sauce. We were going to harvest a somewhat overgrown bed (adolescent vs. baby) of spicy Mesclun mix, but it just had too many holes from flea beetles and would have required cooking. Given this hot and greens-deprived summer, we almost cut and packed it, but we've got enough value without it, and the purslane is a lot nicer, so we tilled in the spicy mix. Transplanting (lettuce, broccoli, cabbage) and direct sowing (carrots, turnips, beets) of fall crops is well underway and looking good. We just got our new
$6,000 tractor-mounted seeder last week and are anxiously waiting to use it in a big way this week. Our fall carrots in particular depend on it. We'll keep you posted on the progress.
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Chris Covelli
and the Tomato Mountain Farm Team
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