We have quite a crop of these and have decided to make them cheaper than the other three varieties for multiple reasons. First, they bore much heavier than we anticipated, out-yielding the other three varieties of winter squash. Two, they seem to have some problems on the surface, and are inclined to develop spots which may cause them to break down. Tom says the last bin we pulled out, to grade them into crates had something on the order of 80% with spots. We will probably need to send these down as seconds at half price, donate some to the local food bank, and just plain compost many. A real shame, but "What ya gonna do?".

     Also, they turned out to be quite large for the most part and a lower price just makes sense to us; so while you will see Sunshine, BonBon and Butternut at $1.49 per pound, the yellow skinned Spaghetti Squash will go for only $.99 per pound, and may be found at some locations in a discount section at $.49 per pound with harmless spots; harmless if you use the squash before they go downhill, so to speak.

     We have just had one of the largest pickings of greenhouse grown Sweet Peppers that we have ever experienced. These babies are as gorgeous, coming in red, orange and yellow, flavorful, and sweet as any we have ever grown. Perhaps it is the perfect environment of the newest greenhouse or just the refining of our cultural practices by way of Tom Childs. 

     In light of the good harvest at this time we have decided to do one of our sales. The regular price of the peppers at this time is $5.99 per pound, but to encourage bulk sales we have decided to offer a deal of $4.99 per pound if you purchase 5 or more peppers (not pounds).

     Tom has attended a number of conferences on greenhouse growing and is signed up for one by way of Penn State, to study Bio-Control pest techniques, a two day affair, the third one to which he has been.

     Our use of the release of predator insects has had its ups and downs but is always evolving. In the picture below you can see "sachets" of predators hanging on the branches of pepper plants. The process is very time consuming, and though fairly effective, is not perfect. Every branch in the "house" is to get a sachet hung on it, and it takes about a day and a half for one person to cover this planting.

     New techniques are being developed, in which the predators may be spread by way of a special attachment on a leaf blower, and Tom will explore the technology while at the conference, especially wanting to speak with growers with "real world" experience, rather than just the enthusiastic salesmen with whom he deals regularly. 

     I don't wish to imply that no chemicals are ever used, but as with all our crops great care is taken to use the "softest" materials, and best techniques which Integrated Pest Management protocols can provide.

     I've seen more than a few customers look upon the Kaleidoscope Greens (and Purples) with some confusion and doubts. Many of you are fans from in the past, at least three years, when we offered them for sale, but apparently some are totally unfamiliar with them.

     The picture above, taken on Monday, shows a mature field planted on some of the new ground we rent, ready for the start of harvest. With their multiple colors of foliage, the Flower Sprout plants are around four feet tall, and quite bushy, as you can see. If you look closely you will see the multi-colored aspect which makes for the name "Kaleidoscope"; there are actually the seeds from three strains randomly mixed in the field. There is a fully purple variety, a half purple and a completely green type in the mix we get from the seed house.

     Johnny's Selected Seeds is where we purchase most of the seed for annual veggy crops, unless they just don't have what we want. This year we have also planted what they are calling Kalettes, but though they are about ready to harvest we just haven't had enough time and labor to get to picking them. 

     The first pickings of Brussels Sprouts, Kalettes and Flower Sprouts are right down at ground level, being as the little sprouts mature from the bottom up to the growing tip of the plant. Those at the top of the plant may not be harvested for many weeks. Some customers have asked "Why don't you bring them down on the stalks, like I've seen at other markets? There is a good reason in that there are all stages of maturity on any given plant. To cut a plant at this time, with only the bottom ready for picking would mean that the balance of the crop would be wasted.

     Our plantings, however, are so extensive this year, for the most part to protect the crop, by sheer numbers, from the disasters of the last couple of years, you may yet see us cut some and bring the whole plant, or at least a section thereof, down to either just display, or perhaps even to sell. I'm pretty sure that Jesse took both a Brussels Sprout and a Kaleidoscope plant to market last weekend.

     The upshot is that our crop is the healthiest and most healthful we have ever grown, and not only the good weather can take some credit but the new ground, fallow for many years, gets some credit, as does our increasing experience at farming such crops.

     The "Brassicas"  are super-foods in many ways, with the Kaleidoscope being extra nutritious from the increase in phyto-nutrients indicated by the deep purple color present in many of the sprouts, much like the nutritive value of our "Purple Haze" carrots being exponentially higher than the orange varieties.

     For a recipe, as well as ways of preparing flower sprouts, in general, I'm going to once again fall back on the postings of Domenica Marchetti, as with the celery soup recipe last week. She was at market yesterday and was grateful for my mention and link; enough of you went to her site that it showed well in her statistics, so thanks for clicking. Here is another opportunity to "click" to read about "A Love Child at Thanksgiving", from 2012 when Domenica first discovered Kaleidoscope at our stand at the Mt. Vernon Farmers' Market. You'll see that she has a nice close-up picture of the flower sprouts, as well as a photo of her shopping in Abruzzo; we don't have a market there, as far as I know, so those aren't our peppers she's looking through.

     In exploring just what is online with respect to both Brussels Sprouts and Flower Sprouts I came across a very complete run-down on their nutritional benefits; so extensive that I'm going to link to it rather than simple "copy and paste" it here. So, from an excellent site for CSAs, with lots of recipes and info here it is "Brussels sprouts nutrition..."

     We've had quite a bit of good feedback on our celery, both at market and by way of replies to this newsletter. All the praise and attention is much appreciated. I sent out an email to give instructions on how to keep the celery fresh and crisp, but when using a copy of an old email "blast", to simply rewrite and edit, I failed to change the subject line, which unfortunately read "Parking at Takoma", due to its being a clarification of some misinformation I had sent along a couple of days prior to that one.

    Well, I was a bit fed up with my own screw-ups and chose not to re-send the celery follow-up with a corrected title, not wishing to over stay my welcome on your computer. I am, however, going to copy the suggestions here, for those of you who understandably didn't bother to open what looked like a message for a very limited audience in Takoma. Here she be: