Tue, Sep 04, 2007 · Filed under CSA, Harvest, Summer, Veggies
After the long holiday weekend, I did a quick new harvest for the handful of usually-on-Monday CSA shares. We have three CSA pick-up days, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, and harvest for the last two can be mostly combined on Sundays. With kinda cool and cloudy weather today, veggies could be left outside on the table for a few minutes—in full summer heat, they’d quickly start to get toasted. I’ve tried to reduce PLASTIC to a minimum (tiny farming has somehow made me averse to much packaging, especially with plastic). The tomatoes need to be kept together, they’d be crushed if let loose in the final shopping bag. And the greens, well, no other easy solution (I’m looking into reusable cotton salad bags that could be put in the fridge, another future project; I’ve moved to paper bags this year for potatoes). As for the shopping bags, I’m considering reusable tote bags, two per shareholder, that could be swapped empty-for-full each week, but the extra BAG MANAGEMENT I know would be fairly, let’s see…time-consuming. Details…
Tags:
beet,
broccoli,
carrots,
CSA share,
garlic,
green onion,
mesclun,
onion,
peppers,
summer squash,
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Thu, Aug 30, 2007 · Filed under CSA, Harvest, Local food, Summer
A specially Thursday-picked Large share, tiny farm flexibility in action for a shareholder who missed the weekend pick-up. A Large is about one and a half the size of the standard Single share. This week: carrot (Touchon), beet (Golden Detroit, Scarlet Supreme), tomato (assorted heirloom), mesclun (9-lettuce), spring onion (Ramrod, Red Baron), summer squash (Sunburst, Golden Dawn III, Ambassador), potato (Gold Rush), pepper (Ace), onion (Stuttgarter), garlic (Music). The shares have been pretty good this year, not over the top (in a superabundant way) as they have been at times in the past, but definitely solid value for the fresh, local, organic dollar!
Tags:
beet,
carrots,
CSA share,
garlic,
heirloom,
highlights,
mesclun,
onion,
peppers,
potato,
summer squash,
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Mon, Aug 20, 2007 · Filed under Indoors, Summer, Veggies
A new view of the far end of the field, taken from on top of the soon-to-be-roofed farm stand. The garden looks shockingly half-empty to me, but in fact that’s only due to being more on top of cleaning up finished sections than in years past. Also, most of the current crops happen by this year’s rotation to be way at the top: squash, corn, tomatoes, brassicas, and the last two plantings of carrots and beets are off in the distance. I’m broadcasting oats into the empty sections and hoping for WATER to fall like manna from heaven so there’ll be a decent amount of fall growth. Lots of clouds but still no rain…
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Sat, Aug 18, 2007 · Filed under Harvest, Market & Stand, Summer, Tools, Veggies
Today’s wares set up behind the stand at the farmers’ market. First thing in the morning (that’s around 7 am), we open and arrange all of the crates and use them to stock the stand and assemble CSA shares. Here, we’re partway into the morning—as the day progresses, crates get stacked. Visible in the pic, an assortment of mainly heirloom tomatoes, carrots, assorted sweet peppers (we picked a lot of ‘em green before turning to red rather than let them shrivel in the near-drought conditions), various beets, garlic, and green and yellow beans pre-packed for the CSA. As for the traffic, the day was on the quiet side, despite great weather—it seems the fresh, local, organic trend so pumped in the media this year, and apparently somewhat sweeping the cities, is taking its time hitting the countryside. All in all, though, a decent Saturday!
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Mon, Aug 13, 2007 · Filed under Harvest, Summer, Veggies
When yet another person asked for the “purple carrots” at last Saturday’s farmers’ market, I realized they had moved up from alternative variety to mainstay status, alongside Nelson (hybrid) and Touchon (open-pollinated heirloom). That’s kinda cool, considering how orange and carrot go together around here. This is the second season that I’ve harvested PH for market at least every two or three weeks.
This year, I’ve included PH in every carrot planting (five so far, one a make-up for bad germination), and despite one bad showing, germination is overall as reliable as any of the others. Once established, PH has been great in our rather heavy clay-loam soil, growing straight and performing well even when a bit crowded.
Purple Haze is an imperator-shaped carrot (thick at the top, tapering to a point, cartoon carrot-style), with an orange core, and retains its purple color even through light cooking (it gets darker and less purple with full cooking). And it consistently tastes great—raw, it has a distinctively dry, refreshing crunch, and it’s always sweet as well as…carroty.
It’s a hybrid (I intend to try Purple Dragon, which I’ve had my eye on for a while, apparently an heirloom, but the seed is crazy expensive…), grows to 10-12″ (25-30cm) in 65-70 days, was an AAS winner (best of the best new varieties) for 2006, the year it hit seed catalogs here.
The bunch in the pic, pulled for today’s last couple of CSA shares, are from the second planting and just starting to put on size. And, yeah, they’re named after the classic Jimi Hendrix track!?! “‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky…” :)
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Tue, Aug 07, 2007 · Filed under Summer, Veggies
We’re just starting on the second planting of carrots, and green onions as well. It’s the standard four rows (200′/61m) to a bed, which goes a long way. Depending on thinning, and of course, the weather and amount of irrigation, anywhere from one to two feet of a single row of carrots makes up a 1-2 lb bunch, so that’s 100-200 bunches per bed. Here, it’s Nelson, Purple Haze and Touchon, with Ramrod onions up in the corner, and another bed of Nelson out of sight to the right. Once they work through germination and tiny seedlings being eaten issues, carrots around here are a carefree, low maintenance garden veg, a pleasure to host (and munch)!
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