Last seen simply soaring up above 7′ (2m), the Jerusalem artichoke recently exploded with flowers. Last year, flowers appeared on some plants, and I read that flowering chokes isn’t that common. You couldn’t tell from here… The plants continue to thrive, weathering pretty heavy wind recently with only a bit of a lean. I haven’t dug around to see what the tuber harvest may be like, but I expect it’ll be massive…
Veggies
Farm share
It’s interesting to see what everyone here helping in the field choose to harvest. Smaller selections always surprise me, I’d be, “A little of EVERYTHING, thanks!” Lynn, who’s off till Friday, went for herbs—sage, parsley, rosemary—a couple of zucchini, a couple of peppers, and some broccoli shoots… Where are the carrots, beets (with beet greens!), onions, green onions, potatoes, parsnip, carrots, spinach, baby lettuce, beans, basil, tomatoes, garlic, kale, eggplant,…FLOWERS?! UPDATE: Lynn pointed out that there was OTHER STUFF hidden underneath the herbs…
Restaurant run
A phone call on the weekend lead to this, our first real restaurant sale. It was cool! A chef called looking for local, organic veggies for a special menu this week. They’d joined at the last minute a regional food festival, featuring local food in restaurants in several towns. I ran down what we had available and followed up with an emailed price and available quantity list. Today, we harvested and delivered: green beans (Jade), potatoes (Kennebec), beets (Golden Detroit, Scarlet Supreme), carrots (Nelson, Purple Haze, White Satin), and onions (Stuttgarter-type yellow cooking, yellow Spanish), in the 25lb (11kg) range for each. Pricing was the normal market unit price, no “wholesale” discount. It was great pulling up to the back of the building, delivering into the kitchen, checking out and describing each veg with the chef. The dinner plans: a “hearty fall soup” and a “steamed vegetable pasta with olive oil and herbs.” Market gardens and progressive local restaurants are a natural and quite common direct fit…as seen on TV (I’ve been known to watch the Food Channel)! I’ve had some minor dealings with restaurants in seasons past, but we’d never got round to a classic chef’s order and kitchen delivery. so it was interesting to go through the whole routine. We had lunch there afterwards, and the food was refreshingly good: bruchetta, flatbread pizza, sweet potato fries, salt and pepper rib tips, an asparagus sandwich (yeah, the asparagus aren’t exactly in season around here, but their special local food menu is a step in a cool direction…). Fun! Oh, and no frost last night.
Fall frost watch 2008
Tonight is the first real frost watch of the year. I covered a bunch of beds for a couple of nights last week, but the chance of frost seemed slim, with the overnight forecast around 35°F (<2°C). Today, they say it’s supposed to go down to 33°F (0.5°C), with clear skies and no wind, perfect frost conditions. Under cover: peppers, eggplant, summer squash, beans, cucumber (a really late experimental planting), basil, sweet potato (above). It’s floating row cover is the usual Agribon AG-19, in 14′ ((4.3m) widths. Let’s see how it goes…!
The field heading into autumn
Here’s how the market garden looks as a quiet Sunday, and the summer, wind down. A lot of the low-growing greenery is mowed weed cover on sections that have been finished for the season, waiting to be tilled under. This year, the final fall field prep plan is to direct-seed fall rye…
CSA set-up at the farmers’ market
This year’s mostly self-serve approach to CSA pick-up at the farmers’ market has gone along smoothly. The bin set-up has evolved into one long row, cafeteria-style, I guess you could call it—shareholders bring their own bags and move down the line. It definitely cuts hours off of Friday packing, which makes the weekly harvest a lot more fun. We’ve also had time for “extras,” like two or three herbs every week…
Fall harvest…
We’re definitely into fall weather now: the thermometer may still read “warm” but there’s always a cool edge in the air. This is the best field-working weather, you can go on for hours. Today was a bit damp, and the abundant root crops were muddy from the overnight rain (they get rinsed, with a spray of the hose on Jet for the roots, then a dunk in the laundry sink to rinse off the leaves). Carrots were in 2 lb (900g) bundles, by the trusty kitchen scale we’re still using…
We bundled the beets in the field—these are the red standbys of the season, Scarlet Supreme. Always reliable, they’re in great shape and flavor, and the greens are particularly substantial…
The tomato harvest was fairly slim and motley, maybe 120 lbs (54kg), enough for CSA shares only. We’re picking them even partially ripe—frost may come at any time, no sense in waiting. The toms may not be too pretty, but they’ve somehow become real tasty in the last couple of weeks, steadily developing from the milder flavors of the first pickings, to really quite fine! Was it the recent sunshine? Whatever the reason, it’s a pleasant surprise!