CSA Newsletter Week 10

WEEK 10

Long time, no newsletter. Sorry folks. It has been non-stop work for this gal. August is always an overwhelming month. We spend most of our time these days harvesting and hauling irrigation pipe through the fields. We are lucky to get any weeding done. (Here I picture all the little, or not so little, weeds triumphantly rubbing their leaves together, saying to each other “we won!”) On top of that, pickling cucumbers are taking up a lot of our attention, esp. on the admin end. I know by now this time of chaos is brief, and soon things will mellow. I’m just grateful to have so much amazing food to eat! Speaking of pickiling cucumbers, we are no longer taking orders, but if you come to the Olympia Farmers Market at 10 on Friday or Saturday, there might be some available.

WHAT’S IN THE BOX:
carrots
cabbage
CORN!!!!
Russian banana potatoes
sweet onion
red onion
zucchini
crookneck or patty pan
rosemary
slicing cucumbers
lemon cucumbers
beets or chard

Elaborations:
We are excited for the corn. We have 2 more plantings right behind it so you will for sure be seeing it again. Be sure to eat it tonight or tomorrow. Corn loses its sweetness after it is harvested.
Lemon cucumbers- I hope you weren’t confounded by the lemon cucumbers in the past few boxes. They are the round, yellow mystery vegetable. Eat them as any other cucumber. No need to peel. If ever you don’t recognize something, check out the veggie ID photo gallery on the website.
Beans-You’ve probably noticed the absence of green beans these past 2 weeks. I’m sure some of you are relieved, and others are panicking that bean season came and went in the blink of an eye. The current planting is petering out and the new one isn’t quite happening. There are two plantings that we haven’t even touched yet, so they will get back in the rotation soon.
The tomatoes are taking their own sweet time. Most years we are swimming in them by now. This year they got off to a rough start and were battling it out with some serious weeds. I think the tomatoes are winning now, so hopefully these warm days will hasten ripening.

I feel like we are straddling seasons. Food-wise we are in high summer, and with temps near 100 the other day, it seems like rain and clouds are months away. Landscape-wise, the browning leaves and morning mist tell us we clearly have one foot already in the fall camp. All we can do is enjoy where we are. Both have their charms.

As fall nears, we are gearing up for some big fall harvests. We knocked all the onions tops over to start the curing process. Soon we will haul them into our many greenhouses to finish drying. The dry bean plants have been pulled and the pods are drying in the sun. Potato vines have been mowed and irrigation discontinued so the skins may set in advance of what we call “the big dig”. Winter Squash harvest will follow sometime in mid-September. And let us not forget garlic planting. Speaking of garlic, you may be wondering why you haven’t been getting any. We had a crop failure in the garlic. Some years we struggle with white rot which causes, you guessed it, the bulbs to rot. Other years we struggle with rust, which affects the leaves thus diminishing bulb growth. This year was a double whammy. We lost nearly all of it. We are either fools or optimists because will plant again in the fall and hope for a better outcome. We have some ideas on how to make conditions more favorable for healthier garlic.

So that’s life on the farm these days. Working a ton. Eating like kings. Wishing we had clones of ourselves to get all the things done. Grateful to have a job doing what we love and making a positive contribution to this crazy world.

Now go make dinner!

Jen