Hi farm friends,
What wild fall weather we are having. First, a heat wave, and then some torrential rain. This week seems to be looking like more usual fall weather, with sunny skies and cooling temperatures. We are now high on the lookout for frost - looks like it's going down to 4 degrees on Thursday night which is danger territory. We'll be covering up our beans (which are just starting to produce) and our salad mix (which we hope we can continue to grow for the rest of the month). We'll attempt to cover our peppers and eggplants as well, but we don't have enough cover for all of them. In light of that, we'll be harvesting a lot more green peppers this week, in case we do get frost and they don't get the chance to turn colour.
We had a lot of fun harvesting our winter squash last week. There's something so satisfying about the different shapes and colours of the squash, their weight in your hands and the way their brightness pops amongst the dying plants. Wet soil and some nutrient deficiencies harmed our yields. But we still appreciated the squash we got.
Fall Farm Share
After some thinking, we have decided not to run a fall share this season. On a whole, our fall crops didn't live up to our expectations. Cauliflower and broccoli suffered a huge loss from rodents, and many other crops like winter squash, onions, leeks, kohlrabi, cabbage, and turnip didn't produce the numbers we needed for the fall share. Furthermore, we decided to give our hoophouses a rest rather than plant our winter greens (salad mix, spinach, chard, kale, bok choy). That in particular was a very hard decision since we were really looking forward to extending the season with our hoophouse. But, there are some soil issues there (wet, clumpy, nutrition deficiencies) that need to be addressed if we are to improve our summer tomatoes next season. So, we have composted, broadforked, and planted a cover crop of oats and peas. Farming, as always, is a humbling experience. We've certainly gained some important perspectives about planning and growing for fall harvests that we hope to implement next year.
Although we won't have a fall share, we still do hope to have some veggies after the regular farm share is over! Carrots, parsnips, cabbage, garlic, and salad mix at least. We'll continue to run a Harvie Farm Stand farm pick up to keep these veggies coming to you as long as possible.
Grow carrots grow!
Market Share Pick Up
Thanksgiving weekend marks our last time at the Komoka and Strathroy markets. That's Saturday the 9th, or Farm Share week 18. For week 19 and 20, your pick up will be switched to our Thursday 3pm-7pm farm pick up. We will also create an option to pick up on Saturday at the farm from 9am-12pm. To switch to that pick up date, go to your Harvie account and reschedule under the 'deliveries' tab (you might have to wait til tomorrow before the new location is available for switching).
Alex, Sarah, and Lark packing shares on Thursday.
Veggies This Week
Some new fall veggies are making an appearance. Leeks, fennel, and the first of our cabbages. Now, the leeks and fennel are not (nearly) as big as you would probably expect. For many reasons, they just aren't going to grow any bigger. But, we know they will still taste great. We try really hard to provide the most beautiful, highest quality veggies for our wonderful farm-ily. But sometimes, part of the farm share experience is getting to eat food that is - well, real and unfiltered. The leeks might look like spring onions to you - you can tell them apart by their flat leaves. Eggplants and peppers are still around, at least for this week, maybe more depending on the frost. Head lettuce is back, as well as kohlrabi and the beautiful yet underappreciated watermelon radish.
Can't believe there are only 3 weeks left after this week! Happy eating everyone.
Your farmer,
Kim
