Week 10

Crop	Half	Cost	Full	Cost
Cherry tomatoes			1 pint	2.50
Tomatoes	1 small	.50
Summer Squash			1.25 lb.	2.00
Potatoes	3 lb.	6.00	5 lb.	10.00
Cucs	2 lb.	3.00	3 lb.	4.50
Scallions	1 bunch	2.00	1 bunch	2.00
Cabbage	1 head	1.50	1 head	3.00
Carrots	1 bunch	2.00	1 bunch	3.00
Total		15.00		27.00

Recipe Of The Week

Isabel’s Cabbage Hash

1 cabbage

1 cucumber

1 grapefruit

1 green apple

oil and vinegar

In a food processor finely shred cabbage and cucumber. Dice up fruit and mix with cabbage and cucumber. Shake oil and vinegar and pour over mixture. Stir and eat!

Suggestions: mandarin oranges, pineapple, grapes, pears. Garnish with avocado or cherry tomato halves.

What’s Going On?

Hello everyone! First off, thanks to all the folks who came out and helped harvest potatoes on Sunday! I was very happy with the turn out, and had a really really nice time working with all of you. It really makes work all that much more enjoyable when I can do it while getting to know you all better. Charlie and I weighed the potatoes that we harvested and bagged on Sunday, and the total for the two hour period was 1,393 pounds!!! Can you believe it? That was from four beds, and we still have a bed and a half to go. So, hope you like potatoes, I talk about how to store them in the produce info section, see below.

The other big news we have it rain, rain and more rain. As I am sure you all have noticed, the past few days have been filled with inches and inches of rain. We have had about five here since Friday. That is a lot in a short amount of time. Not as bad as some farmers I talked to Saturday morning at market, they received 6 inches Friday night alone. That kind of rain can cause some irreversible damage to certain crops. The rain we have received so far here has not been too detrimental. There may be some effects that have not made themselves known yet, for example I am sure that the Early Blight (a fungal disease) on the tomatoes will turn into high gear at this point, as the wet humid weather are its triggers. Also, I hope the last bed and a half of potatoes can wait until tomorrow to be harvested and not start to rot in the ground due to the soupy muddy soil conditions. We’ll see! The good news is we have not ‘lost’ anything right out, which is always a scare with way too much rain. As my neighbor says, in a drought year folks go hungry, in a year with too much rain folks starve. Well, that is pretty dramatic, but with a 3 acre pond here to irrigate with, I will sure take a drought year over a too rainy year any time.

As you can see, the tomatoes are still creeping along. The real harvests will start within the next two weeks, and you should all be receiving a few pounds at that point. They started early this year, and have not really increased in yields too quickly because of that. I also am fighting the Tomato Fruitworm, a catipillar that bores into the fruit itself and then renders the fruit no good for consumption as it rots pretty soon after. They have hit pretty hard this spring, and in response I have tried a spray called Dipel, which is an Organically Approved spray. It is a BT (Bacillus Thurengensus), a live bacteria that the catipillar eats and then....well, we don’t need to go into the gory details, you get the point. I think I am winning finally, but I am not too sure. I will keep you posted!

Produce Info....

I know, I know, more cabbage. I hope you all are not groaning about that! I have added my mothers cabbage hash recipe which I have enjoyed for lunch the past few days. It is very tasty and refreshing. This will be the last week of cabbage for the spring, so keep that in mind as you enjoy it. Also, keep this in mind: Properly stored cabbage can last for three weeks to two months in the refrigerator. It could last much longer than that in optimum root cellar conditions. Refrigerate in a plastic bag to help retain the moisture and do not remove the outer leaves before storage.

Potatoes will hold at room temperature for up to two weeks, store away from light. They will hold much longer if you store them in your refrigerator, or at 45-50 degrees with high humidity and darkness. If their environment is too warm they will sprout and shrivel, if too cold the starch will turn in to sugar. In the right conditions though, potatoes will store for months.

What To Look Forward To....

Next week we should see green beans again, as well as more cucumbers, onions, potatoes, and summer squash. Pretty soon, but hard to say exactly when, we should see some cantaloup and watermelon. Also, the corn is looking really good, the only problem is that there will not be a whole bunch of it because we had pretty bad germination. I’ll get that crop right one of these years. The tomatoes are coming, as I mentioned, and we should see lots of them soon! That is it for now, thanks so much for your support! Please let me know if you have any questions or comments! Elise.