Hello and welcome to week 7 of the CSA.

I figured this would be a good time to talk about all of the rain we have gotten and some of the issues it brings with it.  The most damaging storm was the day-long deluge we experienced 3 or 4 weeks ago where we got 5 inches of rain in 8 hours.  Over the next 5 or 6 days we received another 3 or 4 inches of rain.  This amount of rain meant our soils reached there "Saturation Point" which means it was holding the maximum amount of water it could, and thus there was very little air left in the soil.  It is these anaerobic conditions that are harmful to plants.  The majority of crops already planted survived well but those in our lower fields did suffer some damage.  Spinach is the most sensitive crop to wet soils and a beautiful stand was killed and the freshly seeded stuff did not make it either. Maybe a quarter of our Brussels Sprouts did not survive (luckily we had some extra plants we could replace them with).  Our other low field has all of our tomatoes, peppers and eggplant as well as the first planting of summer squash. Most of these crops survived but their growth has been severely stunted.  One major side affect of stunted growth is that the plants want to produce fruit prematurely.  The main goal of a plant is to reproduce and pass its genes onto the next generation, in the case of tomatoes and peppers that mean producing the fruits we eat.  When a plant gets stressed out it gives up on growing vegetatively (the leaves) and focuses its limited resources on reproducing.  If we let the plants produce fruit when they are still small the fruit will be much smaller and potentially less flavorful because there is not enough vegetation to produce the sugars and nutrients necessary for vigorous, healthy fruits. To prevent this we clip off fruits and blossoms so the plant focuses on growing big instead of growing fruit.  We have had to perform this "plant husbandry" on the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, summer squash and winter squash.  I feel confident our efforts will pay off but only time will tell.

For some good news, the celery and onions loved the rain and are looking very nice.  For some great news, BEETS!! and fennel and green beans; three of my favorite veggies in one share.  I enjoy all three prepared the same way, although usually in separate dishes- roasted with olive oil, salt and garlic until golden brown and delicious.