Wow, what a week of weather! After a mostly droughty, scorching summer, this week provided a most pronounced shift. On Tuesday, we received 2.5" of rain over the course of a few hours - welcome rain, no doubt, even though the crew had to slog through it to finish harvesting veggies for shares. Thankfully, we were spared most of the severe stuff, just a few stretches with high wind. But as the forecast remains full of rain, we are eyeing the real possibility of being prevented from planting our remaining crops out in the field -- arugula, radishes, and a final succession of spinach. This time of year, with shortening days and cooler nights, every day counts. A week delay can result in a crop that doesn't reach maturity before the hard freezes roll in. Fingers crossed for a few dry days over the next week to allow us to get into the field one more time.
In addition to a shift to wetter weather, the long-range forecast looks sharply cooler, with daily highs in the 70s, dropping to 60s by the end of next week. This bodes well for the maturing cool-season crops you'll increasingly see in shares, but may slow ripening during the last hurrah of pepper and tomato season. At least it'll be comfortable work weather!
But summer is not over yet! We are loaded up with tomatoes and featuring them in this share. We also have the rest of your salsa ingredients - onion, garlic, cilantro, bell pepper, and a hot pepper assortment (offered this week as an extra). We also have several bulk tomato options as extras which are offered at wholesale prices. We have also decreased the valuation on some of the tomatoes to give you a better deal and share in our current abundance.
Hot peppers, which is our other major crop group outside of our CSA crops, are in peak season. With all varieties now ripening, it's a hustle to get it all picked every week. On Wednesday, there were 19 of us, our biggest single day crew ever. Thanks to our crew of eight and Saidang Xiong, who brought down 10 people from the Twin Cities to harvest with us. See the featured image above to see us picking anaheims and habaneros.
This will likely be the final newsletter I (Dana) write before the baby arrives, so I'm handing the reigns over to Sarah, Haley, and Justin to steer the ship for a week or two. Thanks to them and the rest of the crew for stepping up to give me some time to spend with our little one and care for Karin while she recovers.
Notes on select items in this week's shares
- Spinach: After delayed fall spinach in 2020, we moved our seeding date forward this year and lucked out with a very nice stand of spinach, despite it germinating during very hot weather. Enjoy it fresh or lightly cooked.
- Melon: These are Sugar Cube cantaloupes from our second succession. While our taste tester melons have been sweet and flavorful, excessive rainfall like we are experiencing this week can dilute flavor and sugars of fruits like cantaloupe and watermelon. We won't know until Monday whether they'll be impacted, but let's hope not! Some folks will receive two smaller melons instead of one full-sized fruit.
- Sweet onions: These yellow sweet onions look very similar to the yellow onions many shareholders received last week, but they have higher sugar content, less astringency, and softer flesh.
- Colored bell peppers: We are describing (and pricing) these as seconds, but in truth, they're just mildly misshapen decorated with a small scar. Some might even end up being firsts, as we don't know what percentage of these 'A-' peppers we will sort out of our next wholesale harvest.
- Cherry tomatoes: In addition to the red and orange cherries we've been packing to date, we just started harvesting from a field planting of grape tomatoes, so folks will receive one of those three. The grape tomatoes have really nice, classic tomato flavor, and have great shelf life given their lower moisture content as compared with the other varieties.
- Hot pepper assortment: This week as an extra, we are offering a mix of fresno, cherry bomb, habanero, serrano, and jalapeno peppers for you salsa makers and spice-seekers!
What's coming up? Green leaf head lettuce, roma tomatoes, Swiss chard, and watermelon are likely candidates for box 14. Plus more salad mix and spinach. Not long after that, we hope to start harvesting broccoli, lacinato kale, and winter squash.
Have a great week!
Dana
