Busy day yesterday being one crew member short and at the same time trying to prepare a bit for the potential rain tomorrow. I say one crew member short, but not really – just one of the four of us on vacation. Most farms of our type that I know don’t really do summer vacations but for me it’s important to be able to take some time in the summers to recharge and so I make that an option for everyone on the crew and I’m happy when people take advantage of it – and even happier when they come back, refreshed!
The share this week is heavy on the tomatoes, and with a little luck, it’ll continue to be for the next few weeks (more notes on tomatoes in a follow up post soon). Cucumbers and summer squash continue to be staples, but they’re slowing down a bit. Two Ailsa Craig sweet onions this week, and we’ll be giving out a lot more onions in the next few weeks. Lettuce, celery and carrots round out the share – all a bit ragged from various summer stresses, but still tasty.
In preparation for potential rain tomorrow, one of our tasks yesterday was getting the storage onions whose tops are drying down out of the field so they don’t get wet. We still have one more round of sweet onions to give out in the next few weeks, as well as some more red onions. We’re also pulling in all of the shallots and storage onions and we’ll give some of those out before the end of summer, and some of them we’ll hold onto to put into the early fall shares.
In addition to pulling in onions yesterday we managed to plant escarole for the fall shares, one of my favorite fall salad crops! I also seeded watermelon radishes, Gilfeather’s turnips (more of a rutabaga, but ultimately better than any other turnip or rutabaga), and hakurei turnips – all for the fall shares. A little cooling rain tomorrow should actually help these germinate nicely.
For the farm stand we’re harvesting padron peppers, some chard bunches, trebona beans, tsakoniki eggplant, and we might have a few extra summer squash and cucumbers. Basil is available for special order, and next week we’ll start having the Ulysses sauce tomatoes for special order as well. The u-pick area has lots of cherry tomatoes, padron peppers, the first jalepeños, many herbs and cut flowers – and they all need to be picked so don’t be shy. Stay tuned for more information on tomato varieties (or look back through the social media posts from last summer for my notes then – pretty much the same as this year I think).
Cully Neighborhood Farm 