We’re solidly into the middle of summer now and it’s a bit of a funny lull in our harvest schedule some years as we wait for tomatoes and peppers to ripen. The romano beans ended their first flush of fruits pretty abruptly after Monday’s harvest, sped up by the heat the prior weeks no doubt. This coming week we should have more lettuce, summer squash, cucumbers and onions or shallots. There are a few other items that are possibilities depending on how they size up over the weekend, like cooking celery, chard and even kale! I’ve been thinking the tomatoes are very, very close, but looking at records from the last two years it seems like they don’t really start until the second or third week of August.
We did see the first eggplant of the year on the farm stand on Thursday. It’s a new variety for us and we’re just growing it for the farm stand and not expecting enough for the shares but we’ll see what happens. We’ll try to have some extras on the farm stand of items we don’t have enough of for all of the shares so you can fill out your bags if needed.
Yesterday was another big planting and weeding day. Two different beet varieties for the fall and winter went in, along with the first chicory (Belgian Endive) with lots more to follow soon. Tiiu was back for a guest appearance on the farm and got to hoe her favorites, the rutabaga, which are looking good at this point but have many months to go before harvest.
The critters have been going to town making holes on our drip tape and it’s taking a lot of our time to fix all of the leaks. Longer term we’re going to have to find a fix as it’s been an intermittent problem for a few years now. In the short term we’re going through a lot of tape while we patch things up every time we turn the water on. Oddly it seems like they’re not going for the water, but they just like the fresh, new tape itself. Or maybe they like watching us run around frantically every time we turn the water on and see all the geysers.
Cully Neighborhood Farm 