And then there were two! For the last big Friday harvest of the season—it’s the 18th and final CSA share and second to last Saturday at the farmers’ market—the crew was down to Conall and me. It was a rainy one, with the ground soaked from a couple of days of showers, but it was all smooth. With the cooler, cloudy conditions favoring a little extra storage time, Conall did the Brussels sprouts and eggplant yesterday. And with the shortening days, the mesclun growth has slowed to a near halt, and there’s not enough for CSA shares, so that fairly time-consuming task was out. In fact, things went so well, we managed to take a couple of hours off and head into town to pick up some things, and were still done by 7 pm. In the pic: bok choi and beets up for rinsing, with carrots and Brussels sprouts already in the bins. In today’s harvest: the spicy greens mix (arugula, tatsoi, mizuna, mustard), about 20 lbs (9 kg) of mesclun, collards, parsley, beets, carrots, bok choi, kale, a few broccoli and cauliflower, plus potatoes, onions, garlic, pumpkins and winter squash from storage. Conall’s done for the season tomorrow, so next week for the last farmers’ market harvest, it’s down to one. Time flies…!
bok choi
Tasty baby bok choi
There’s a lot of tasty stuff still in the field, but for me the TASTIEST are the two varieties of bok choi, Joi and Mei Qing, planted in late August, and benefiting immensely from the ample rain and absence of flea beetles of the past weeks. They’re, um, just about perfect! Absolutely delicate flavor. Crisp, juicy stems and tender, entirely unbitten leaves. I’ll miss them when they’re gone…
Flea beetles
All of the brassicas, except for radishes, start out under floating row cover. It’s the only way they’ll survive the flea beetles. Around here, the FBs are a clear and present menace to the cabbage family. They chew little holes in tender baby leaves until nothing but stems and dried out leaf skeletons remain. It’s awful. I could use organic sprays, like rotenone or pyrethrin, but although they’re “approved” and from natural sources (other plants), it seems to me a slippery slope, or at least habit-forming. I haven’t sprayed so far. I did try a garlic blender concoction as a repellent once, but it was like cooking for the FBs, they hopped off and hopped back on once the spraying stopped: salad dressing! Anyhow, this is bok choi (pak choi). FBs eventually managed to get under the edges and do a bit of damage, but that’ll be outgrown, bok choi grows fast (as do radishes). Once the leaves get a bit more substantial, the FBs can’t as easily chomp on ’em. Cauliflower and broccoli, under this same 14′ wide sheet of row cover, are untouched. FBs REALLY like bok choi!
Heading out…
The cold spell seems to be broken, the nights are going down to zero F instead of -10. Time to start moving the main act to the hoophouse. First out, some hardy brassicas: a tray each of broccoli and bok choi, and a mixed tray including some parsley that I set out a couple of days ago as an extreme cold test. This is my first year for early season brassicas, so I’m a little cautious, although I’m well familiar with their general hardiness in the fall. These probably could’ve been out earlier. In front of the table, the lettuce, with the carnage renewed. Overnight, the voles tore apart another 10 seedlings, and I noticed they’d eaten the growing points off another dozen of the red lettuce, taking the toll to 30-40, depending on whether a few recover. Measures, as in, more strategically positioned snap traps and filling in the perimeter, have been taken. In any case, no worries, there’s lots more on the grow! OK, sitting beside the trays on the table, there’s the Heater, intended for construction sites and the like, which hooks up to a regular BBQ propane tank and provides a good amount of heat for surprisingly little gas. It’s not needed yet, but when the tomatoes and other tender guys come out, it will likely be on at night.