Greetings,
Our family life continues to be defined by life with a newborn (and perhaps especially by the needs of our almost-four-year-old who now shares her parents with a brother). We are loving baby Welby and he and mom are both recovering and doing well, considering their recent change in life circumstances. But I won't lie - it's hard. Our grace period with a live-in nanny in the form of Karin's mom has ended, so we're figuring out how to get some sleep, give Anneli at least as much attention and affection as she did pre-Welby, while continuing to keep the farm running during this very busy point in the season.
Out in the fields, we are seeing our typical late summer/early fall shift. Tomatoes are starting to fizzle out; hot peppers are ripening quickly, despite the foliage starting to show its age; fall greens and roots are lush and growing steadily but not as rapidly as we see during the warmer months. The crew is bracing for another couple of busy weeks of pepper harvest, now with large storage crop harvests mixed in.
We began the first of our bulk storage crop harvests this past week with nice haul of delicata squash. Other winter squash varieties will follow: butternut, acorn, Jester, sweet dumpling, and Tetsukabuto, along with some small quantities of other varieties. Squash needs to be picked before the first fall frost, which doesn't seem to be coming anytime soon, but could in theory occur at any point (according to historical weather).
Notes on items in this week's shares:
- Cabbage: We are pretty darned excited to harvest these jumbo green cabbages, which will be weighing in at 5-6 lbs. Get ready for stir-fries, slaws, and borscht!
- Assorted Sweet Peppers: As we wind down on peppers, we are giving an assortment of sizes and colors from various plantings. Shares will receive red peppers along with a green pepper or two. Possibly a yellow or orange bell in the mix, too.
- Italian Eggplant: We have one last small distribution of eggplant. These will be from a larger-fruited hybrid variety as compared with the smaller ones that appeared in shares a month or so ago.
- Serrano peppers: We're doling out a Christmas-y mix of green and ripe red serranos chiles. Expect 6-8 fruits per share. If you're someone who uses one hot pepper a month, pop 'em in a ziplock and toss in the freezer. They cook up just fine after being frozen.
- Spinach: This mild weather we've had has made for nice conditions for regrowth of spinach, so we're keeping it coming!
- Cherry tomatoes: These may well be the final cherries of the season. As production has declined, we're tapering off harvest and will be pulling these plants out of our high tunnel soon to make way for salad mix that will be transplanted in their place for winter harvest.
What's coming up soon? We expect to put Lacinato (and maybe curly) kale and delicata squash in week 17 shares. You will likely see arugula and radishes appearing the week after.
Have a great week!
Dana
