Greetings Country Valley Farm Members,
This is week 14 of the season. This is the last week of August. It sure seems like the summer is flying by. We are thankful for the (slightly) cooler nights, and at the same time holding on to the warm days and sunshine as much as we can. Please send us a brief reply to our hot pepper questions (see below in this newsletter), if you haven’t already.
We appreciate your membership in our farm share program. Thank you for choosing to support our farm with your CSA membership. It means a lot to us and makes a big difference in our world! We hope everyone is enjoying the shares.
A bit about what is going on the farm:
The deer, rabbit, and woodchuck damage is continuing. While we are covering some rows, it is not practical to cover everything they are getting into or might get into. Thankfully they aren’t damaging all crops and seem to completely avoid some. This is part of living with nature and we accept it. While it is disappointing to invest work and resources into a crop and not harvest it or not harvest as much as one would hope, there are more crops that do great and give lots of food and that is important to remember.
The potato harvest is going slowly. We have biting ants that have made a home in the potato beds. They aren’t spread throughout the beds, but it is hard to know where they are until you are into them. As we harvest our potatoes by hand (literally) this is adding challenges. Some of the varieties are yielding well and some are not. We will include mixed fingerling potatoes in next week’s share.
The tomatoes are doing fabulous. We couldn’t be happier with the tomato crop this year. Some plants have produced a lot and may slow down, some are just coming into production. There is a lot of fruit out there, and this time of year it seems to ripen fast.
Our mini sweet peppers are healthy but were interplanted with basil and dill and are patiently waiting for those companion crops to finish up so the peppers can take over the beds.
The basil and the dill is doing well overall. The lemon basil, purple basil and thai basil got crowded out by the dill – we are going to give them some more attention and open up some space around them and see if that helps. We should have another solid month or so of good basil weather. Did you know that basil is one of the tenderest of crops and doesn’t like any weather in the 40s at all, and will call it quits well before the first frost.
The sage is ready to begin picking and will be included in next week’s shares. We love sage with potatoes!
The oregano is in full flowering mode right now.
Other herbs are having mixed results and are seemingly tentative as to how they will produce before the season comes to a close. A lot of perennial crops have a nice resurgence in the fall and we have plenty of time left for hardy herbs.
The greens are most impacted by the animal damage. But we planted a lot of greens and the damage is not throughout all of the beds, so we are encouraged that the fall will be filled with lots of leafy greens.
We have planted 256 lettuce plants and will plant another 256 in a few days. It is our plan to plant lettuce over a 5-6 week period of time so we have successions to harvest from for many weeks in a row. We are covering all of our lettuce with row cover immediately after planting. This not only provides protection from animals, it also will serve to extend the season later in the fall as the weather gets cooler.
The bean plants are growing well. Many of them were damaged but we planted a lot and are hopeful there will be plenty. It is on the to-do list to cover the bean beds that are least damaged.
Fall turnips, dill, and cilantro are growing well and look happy.
We have not yet planted the seeds for fall and winter root vegetables (except the turnips), but it is high on the to-do list for ASAP. Those crops take 1-2 months from planting to harvest, our plan is to have them ready for shares in about that time, so while they didn’t get planted as early as intended we feel safe and okay about it.
The selection of items from Cinzori Farm will really be expanding soon. We are excited about this and looking forward to all of the great varietal produce they provide us with.
This week’s small shares contain the following items:
- Tulsi sacred basil– an exta big bunch from our farm
- Green Curly Kale – 1 bunch from our farm
- Vine ripened tomatoes – a big bag of em’ from our farm
- Eggplant – 1 big one from Cinzori Farm
- Green Zucchini – 1 quart from Cinzori Farm
- Green Bell Peppers – 3 from Cinzori Farm
- Medium shares will receive extra eggplant, extra zucchini, and an extra bunch of greens
- Large shares will packed as 2 small shares.
Some preparation and cooking tips:
- Tulsi sacred basil – this variety is performing the best for us overall of all of the basil varieties. The quality is stellar and the aroma is exceptional. You can use this like you would regular basil or explore new recipes or ways of using it. We have received a lot of positive reviews from folks who are chopping it up (leaves and flowers) and serving chilled with melon, peaches, fruit salad etc.
- Green Curly Kale – we haven’t included bunching greens for awhile and thought it would be a nice addition to this week’s share. If you aren’t big on eating cooked kale, have you tried a kale salad? Kale chips are another easy and tasty way to include this super-healthy vegetable in your diet.
- Vine ripened tomatoes – we are continuing to harvest quite a bit of tomatoes and will be packing nice amounts in the shares once again this week. We are very thankful for the tomato crop this year. It seems the flavor and texture is so good, and the plants are yielding a lot of fruit.
- Eggplant – we are including an eggplant recipe from a member this week (see below)
- Green zucchini – it is still grilling season, these also could pair well with the eggplant and tulsi in a curry or Italian style dish
- Green bell peppers – Stuffed peppers – anyone with a favorite recipe. We like to use green bell peppers and tomatoes when we cook greens to add flavor and texture.
Naomi’s NYT Eggplant Recipe: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1020459-sweet-and-sour-eggplant-with-garlic-chips?smid=ck-recipe-iOS-share
We heard from some members last week, thank you. We would love to hear from everyone on this. A bit about hot peppers and a request for your input:
The hot pepper season is beginning. We like hot peppers and include them in our menu this time of year. We’d like to include some hot peppers in the shares for folks that want them.
We want to get a better sense of who likes what and who doesn’t want what when it comes to hot peppers. I’ve listed a few questions below.
Please reply when ya can and let us know.
- There are many varieties and heat levels of hot peppers. Do you like hot peppers and want them in your CSA Farmshare boxes, when they are in season?
- If your answer is no, the below questions do not apply to you and we won’t include hot peppers in your shares.
- If the answer is yes, please reply to these additional questions.
- What is your favorite hot pepper?
- What heat level do you prefer (from 1-10, with 10 being a super hot pepper like a habanero, scotch bonnet, ghost pepper etc.
- What hot peppers do you want to try that you haven’t?
- Is there anything else you’d like to share about your hot pepper preferences?
Thanks for your time and input. We value your feedback to help us make the farm shares as positive as we can.
Check out our website and peruse old newsletters for additional cooking tips and recipe ideas: https://countryvalleyfarm.com/newsletter/
That’s all for now. Looking forward to seeing everyone soon.
Adam Mitchel
Country Valley Farm