August 28th 2008

Dear Friends,

It seems hard to believe but fall is rapidly approaching. The mercury (or whatever they put in thermometers now) hit 47 degrees on the farm one night last week.

As we get into September the summer crops will slow down and then fizzle out and the fall crops will replace them in the share. We have the July and early August rains to thank for a shortened tomato season. Next week could be the last of it!! As we’ve written about in our past newsletters late blight is running rampant in the main tomato field. It has gotten pretty ugly in there as it has moved onto the fruit. Probably 70% of the fruit look great from the top and then you pick it, turn it over, and realize that there is a big black rotten spot on the bottom. Fortunately the blight never really got to the u-pick tomatoes so they should certainly outlast the field tomatoes and hopefully provide you with what you need to do some canning and freezing. This week should be a big week for cherry tomatoes as well as the beginnings of the tomatillos and sauce tomatoes.

The eggplant and peppers are still looking pretty good and should continue to put out a healthy harvest until we get a frost. We are into the 3rd and final planting of summer squash, zucchini, and cucumbers which look great with the exception of the patty pan squash that we lost to phytopthora. The great run we’ve had with the corn this year is almost over the last planting that should be in next week struggled a little bit as the rain washed away a lot of its’ nutrients stunting the plants and producing smaller ears.

The fall crops look pretty good for the most part. All the brassica crops (broccoli, cabbage, kale, collards, cauliflower, brussels sprouts) are rocking and the multiple succession plantings we did in July and August promise many weeks of bountiful harvest. Our storage onions, that we just pulled out of the ground, look great although the size of the harvest was somewhat reduced due to the higher percentage of rot. I just checked in with the sweet potatoes today and they couldn’t be happier. What a beautiful crop that will be when we start digging them in a few weeks time. Our fall roots gave me a call this week saying they are doing fine and are ready to start sizing up. We’ve got two nice stands of spinach that germinated really well along with our fall turnips which should be sugary sweet.

On a more disappointing note the phytopthora in the winter squash has spread to the jack-o-lanterns, much of the delicata squash, and some of the hubbards. We’ll likely pick most of the winter squash on the early side this year to try to salvage as much as we can. You’ll see the first of the crop this week with the spaghetti squash which will be followed by acorn and buttercup in the coming weeks. Our potatoes were also hit with late blight pretty hard we are planning on digging them next week and hoping for minimal rot.

The garlic is nearly dry hanging in the barn we’ll start cutting it down next week and you should see the first of the cured garlic in the share the following week.

We are planning on doing our pumpkin carving potluck again this year (although we may have to find another farm that has some extra pumpkins for us). We’ll keep you posted on the finalized date but we’re shooting for the second week in October. Happy eating!!

On behalf of the farm crew..

Your farmers,

Rob and Meghan

WHAT’S NEW THIS WEEK

Spaghetti Squash: (see recipes on website) the winter squash you can eat like pasta. Cut in half lengthwise and remove seeds lay face down on a sheet pan with a little bit of water bake 45 minutes at 350. Scrape cooked squash with a fork onto a plate and top with pasta sauce or butter and parmesan. It’s good… we swear.