In the Share - Week Five

Spring cabbage

BEETS (F) My favorite vegetable is ready for harvest – what could be better? When they are young like these, chop the whole plant – root to leaf – and sautee with some garlic and olive oil. Yumm!

CABBAGE (F/P) Spring cabbages are smaller than those in the fall – perfect for a bowl of cole slaw.

SUGARSNAP PEAS (F/P) Wow, do we have a lot of peas out there. I hope we have lots of pickers this week! Come on out if you need to get in a shift.

LETTUCE (F2/P1) the lettuces are hanging in there, but they’ll be gone soon. Enjoy those salads while you can!

STRAWBERRIES (F/P) A pint for everyone. There are still lots of berries in the patch, but fewer perfect ones for the shares.

SPRING TURNIPS (F) Our second spring planting of turnips is ripe for harvest and they are big beauties!

BROCCOLI (F) The broccoli has continued to produce side shoots, so here’s one more round for the full shares.

ONIONS (P) The onions are starting to bulb up. There will be many more to come.

HERBS (F/P) Mint, herb fennel, Thai basil or a dried herb.

NEXT WEEK: More turnips, lettuce, peas and herbs. Carrots and summer squash.

FARM REPORT: Summer begins on Friday, June 21st and we welcome its arrival. This cool, wet Spring has been a real challenge and we are hoping that Summer brings some warmth and drier weather. Since the first seeds were planted in the fields back in March we have been dodging the rain to get any planting done. Just as the fields begin to dry out rain enters the forecast. Sometimes the ground is still a touch too wet and we plant anyway, slogging through the mud. Other times it is so wet there is no way to work it and we wait. 

If we are lucky we can adjust our planting maps and find a drier piece of ground to plant. Such was the case last week when the area slated for the sweet potatoes remained boggy and full of partially-digested rye/vetch cover crop. We love to grow a massive cover crop before the sweet potatoes and the timing usually works out great. Not so this year as the cool, wet soil slowed decomposition and we had no choice but to look for other ground. We found some space that was empty due to the same wet weather that prevented us from planting a cover crop earlier this Spring.

Lucky for us that field was empty or we would have been stuck with 1,000+ sweet potato slips with nowhere to plant them. Instead we fired up the transplanter and in a period of 24 hours we planted all of the sweet potatoes and 750 melon plants.  Later that night over an inch of rain fell as the farmers slept peacefully.