This Week on the Farm 9/17
It rained!! Actually it rained twice this week and we got a total of about two inches of rain. The rain was too late to save the yellow and purple beans that we had planned to put in your box last week, but it sure helped everything else! We wanted to thank you for understanding the impact that the weather has on your box. Last week was one of the few times that we have had to cancel an item at the last minute, but we felt that the crop was not of good enough quality to go in your box. If you did not receive the explanation email last Wednesday, please email me at kate@burroakgardens.com so that I have your email address on file and you do not miss out on any important news.
For those of you who haven’t heard, or guessed from some of the photos that have been on the website, I am 8 1/2 months pregnant. My due date falls during the week of our last CSA delivery. Although we have contingency plans in place for harvesting and delivering your vegetables if I go into labor, we want to make sure we have a way of contacting you to let you know what is going on. If I go into labor on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, there will be other people harvesting and delivering your share that week since Tyler and I will be otherwise occupied. So again, if you didn’t get an email last week, please email me so that you are on our mailing list and are kept in the loop!
Onto crop news! The peppers and tomatoes are at the height of production right now. I have been checking the forecast for nightly lows, and we should be okay for the next two weeks. As long as the daily temps are warm enough for the plants to keep growing, we will have peppers and tomatoes in the boxes for the next several weeks.
The eggplant have not produced very well this season. We think that this may have been caused by a slow start due to the cold weather and a small outbreak of Colorado Potato Beetles that hit right as the plants were first starting to flower. This may have set them back just enough that they are not producing as well as they have in years past.
Given the productivity of fruit per plant, we have made a note that we are going to grow the Japanese type eggplant next year in addition to the two types that we are currently growing. The Japanese type eggplant sets more flowers at one time compared to the other two varieties, so although each individual fruit is smaller, there are more fruit that are ready at one time. This is very important when you are trying to find over two hundred eggplants that are ready at one time.
As of Sunday, our second set of fields is now certified organic. Two out of the three fields were fallow this year as part of our crop rotation, but any crops grown in the third field are now certified. This means that any onions or leeks that are in your box from now on get that extra special label of USDA Certified Organic.
Speaking of onions, Tyler and I harvested all of the red and yellow onions on Monday. I drove the four wheeler and Tyler sat on the back edge of the trailer with his legs dangling off the side and pulled the onions as I drove down each row. Although not as back breaking as bending over and harvesting the onions into smaller totes and then into the truck, it is still not the most comfortable position to be in for any length of time. In normal years we would trade off after every couple of rows, but this year with my belly that isn’t an option.
The onions are currently in our big greenhouse finishing up the curing process. The onions were in a field that did not have any irrigation, so given the lack of rain in July and August we are very happy with the size of the onions this year. This week we are going to use up some of the smaller onions that will not keep as well, so if you receive onions in your box this week, keep that in mind.
This coming Saturday looks like it will be a beautiful Fall day. We are planning on harvesting all of our winter squash, so if you don’t have plans and want an excuse to get outside, come on out to the farm. We have two types of pie pumpkins, two types of butternuts, buttercup, acorn, red kuri, delicata, and baby blue hubbard squash to harvest. It will be a busy day!