This Week on the Farm 9/23
It has been fairly low key on the farm this week. We have been working on processing all of the extra vegetables so we have veggies to eat this winter. We are looking into the possibility of finding an industrial kitchen where we could process everything in order to have it available for purchase. We hope to have a dried goods share and a freezer share available for next year. This would be a one time delivery of a box of assorted dried or frozen vegetables that can be used over the winter.
In addition to these extra shares, we are planning on offering a storage share next year. This would consist of a box of root vegetables like carrots, potatoes, rutabaga, etc. delivered at the end of the growing season. Depending on growing conditions for the rest of the season, we might be able to offer the storage share this fall. If we have an early frost that kills a lot of our greens, we won’t have enough extra root crops to offer the share because they will be used to keep your boxes full through the season. Stay tuned for more information.
We had another visit from our neighbor’s dog on Tuesday. We think she had been on the road rolling in road kill because she was quite pungent. Wash was very excited to see her and searched high and low to find her when we let him out after getting back from returning her to her owner.
Tyler and I spent Tuesday working on more frost protection measures. This warm spell is not going to fool us, we know it will turn cold soon and we want to be prepared.
Wednesday we harvested extra potatoes and carrots for a chef’s dinner on Saturday catered by Monty’s Blue Plate Diner in Madison. This is in addition to the potatoes, carrots, and butternut squash ordered last week. We are thrilled that they like our produce so much! If you are in Madison and want an awesome meal, please stop in. I recommend the waffle fries and a giant cupcake or piece of pie.
The new plantings of radishes, turnips, and beets are looking good. After last week’s intensive weeding and irrigation the spinach and romaine lettuce are picking up their growing pace. We probably will not have hearts of romaine because the growing season is limited in the fall, but we should have romaine in the box in the next week or two.
We figured out that as of right now we do not have late blight. Instead it is the same bacterial spot that infected all of our first round of tomato seedlings this spring. We have been culling diseased plants from the field to try to reduce the spread of disease. So far the Juliet variety of tomatoes have been the most resistant to the disease, and the most prolific. We hope they keep up the good work.
Feeling overwhelmed by all of the jalapeños? To freeze jalapeños for use this winter, cut the peppers in half and place in a freezer bag or wrapped in foil. The peppers will keep for up to a year if well wrapped.
P.S. If your kids don’t like brussels sprouts… you can feed them to our dog.