Fair Share Farm CSA---Week 10

TROPEA ONIONS: We love to grow these beautiful onions that come from farmer Tom's ancestral homeland of Calabria, Italy. Brought to the Italian peninsula by the Phoenicians, this ancient allium has a beautify elongated shape and sharp, sweet taste.

TOMATOES: Our summer planting is beginning to bear fruit. We plant this variety because they will set fruit in the heat of summer. A garden variety tomato, use it fresh or cooked.

KALE: This crop has grown quite quickly since we planted it on August 8th. The leaves are tender and tasty. If you like fresh kale salad, this is the week for it.

CARROTS: Harvested in July, these jewels have spent their time in the cooler sweetening up. Be sure to eat some fresh.

SQUASH: Our second planting of squash is beginning to fruit, just in time for this week's shares.

CUCUMBER: Like the tomatoes and squash, the pickling cukes are also a second planting. While the cukes are growing well we are able to harvest for the CSA one week and for garlic pickle chunks the other.

This week I made a wonderful creamy gazpacho with Companionship Bread's jalapeno loaf, some cukes, tomatoes, onion and squash. This cool summer soup will be perfect this hot weekend.

PEPPER/EGGPLANT/OKRA CHOICE: A choice of versatile vegetables.

GARLIC CHIVE FLOWERS: The recent rain perked up the garlic chives, and our patio is about to become a garden of small white flowers. The flower buds can be used to garnish most any dish, fresh or cooked, that you make with your share.

FARM REPORT:
Since our last report, the farm received over 5 inches of glorious rain!  Hooray!  The drought is not officially over, but the cracks in the earth have closed, the irrigation pond collected water and everything has exploded with lush green growth.

While rain is tremendously exciting for a drought-weary farmer, nothing puts a smile on your face like a box of day-old chicks.  88 little fluffballs arrived on Thursday and were quickly settled in their brooder where they will stay warm and dry for the next few weeks.  Before long, they will be allowed outside to explore their new world, and then in six months we should start collecting eggs from them.  But for now, they just pay us in cuteness.

Fair Share Farm CSA---Week 9

TOMATOES: A good mix of heirloom tomatoes this week. Enjoy these during this peak time period. Lots of water and work has gone into these beauties. Green Zebra, a favorite heirloom of ours, is ripe when green.

POTATOES: I can think of nothing better than a fresh potato salad this time of year. Potato, Onion and Cutting Celery, and German Potato Salad are a couple nice options. Any of the herbs in your share this week goes well with potatoes.

GARLIC: The garlic is at its perfect stage, freshly cured, juicy and flavorful.

SWEET PEPPERS: When they are in the house we regularly add our sweet peppers to any tomato or pizza sauce. Cut them thin and they need very little cooking.

BEANS: We've been patiently awaiting the bean harvest. This hot dry weather has created a halting growth pattern with the beans. Thanks to the CSA farm crew for helping with the Saturday harvests.

CUCUMBER: A second planting is giving us an extension of these summer fruits. These are all of the pickling variety.

OKRA/EGGPLANT/CABBAGE CHOICE: Harvest will dictate this mix, but look for a bit of everything.

HERB MIX: You will get a mix of herbs that will include some but not all of the following: parsley, cutting celery, summer savory, chives and marjoram.

FARM REPORT:
What a summer!  Phew! The heat and drought continue to dominate.  Most of the rain that has fallen in our region over the last month or two has missed us.  Here's the latest drought map:

The blue star marks us in the Extreme Drought category.  Luckily, the irrigation pond is still fairly full of life-giving water.  

In the background, you can also see hay bales from the native grass fields.  With dry pastures, our neighboring ranchers are needing hay for their livestock.  Native warm-season grasses are still green and lush and so we have had some of the fields baled for hay.

Thanks to the irrigation pond, we have happy plants growing for the fall.

cabbages after a few weeks in the ground

new lettuces planted today

The water from the irrigation pond also provides a refuge for nectar and pollen eating insects of all sorts.  While the unirrigated wildflowers dry up, our farm is an oasis of food for our beneficial and wild friends.  

bumblebee in the zinnias

honeybee in the buckwheat cover crop