Good morning!
Brr, it's chilly outside, and incredibly muddy. Yesterday was pretty wet around here, it started raining at 1 o'clock and didn't let up until 6 or so. And it looks like the mountain tops got a dusting of snow. Oh my, cooler months are a coming.
But enough of that... the Summer days continue to fly by and we're trying to keep up with the harvest. I had a long list of projects to complete on Friday and I didn't get to a single one of them as I spent the whole day harvesting... hmmm. Everytime I turned around something else needed picked. I can normally get by harvesting tomatoes every other day, but this week they demanded I check them and harvest daily. Such a wonderful and bountiful time of the year!
We did manage to finish weeding and thinning the rutabagas and first round of beets last week. Better late than never! They're sizing up quick with their new spacious environment and I imagine they loved all the rain yesterday.
The Fall greens are growing fast and are looking pretty good after a pass with the hula hoe. We transplanted another round of head lettuce on Monday and seeded the last round of greens outside. Wahoo! I think that calls for a dance party. We'll seed one last set of greens for the 2016 season in the greenhouse once the tomatoes and tomatillos come out at the end of September.
We harvested the red onions on Sunday! Onions are one of the most satisfying crops to grow when they size up well, as we seeded the onions back in January (yes, January). And it just so happens that this season, almost all of our onions have grown into huge bulbs. Success! So we pulled the reds and they're now set up outside curing. If cured properly they'll last through the cold months of winter. The walla walla onions are ready as well, they're a tasty sweet onion that is best for fresh eating. They do not store well because of the high sugar content so be sure to eat these ASAP.
Harvest for Week 12 of the Summer CSA includes the following:
Lacinato Kale
Carrots
Beets
Heirloom Tomatoes
Cherry Tomatoes
Jalapeños
Bell Pepper
Cauliflower
Basil
Walla Walla Onion
Rattlesnake Beans - my favorite!
Zucchini
Cucumber or Shishitos Peppers
Garlic
See you all this afternoon!
Hello hello,
It's dark, still and silent outside at the moment. I'm always surprised by how quickly the days begin to shorten... the sun rises much later now than it did in the middle of June. Hmmm, is that why getting out of bed early is so much harder these days...?
Tuesdays are my big harvest day but yesterday I kept getting side tracked and managed to spend most of the day doing things other than harvesting. A large round of Fall greens are now seeded! Spinach, salad, arugula and mustard greens. GROW! And the kale, lettuce, chard and collards that we transplanted last week are growing so fast. It's sort a ticking clock right now to get Fall crops planted because as the days get shorter and shorter the growth of everything will slow down tremendously.
So, since I did things other than harvest yesterday... we're going to have a busy morning here. I've made an extensive to-do list in an attempt not to forget anything and think I can get out of here on time if I stay focused :). With that sa here are the harvest details...
CSA Harvest - Week 11 includes the following:
Lacinato Kale
Chard
Carrots
Beets
Heirloom Tomatoes
Cherry Tomatoes
Jalapeños
Bell Pepper
Green Beans
Zucchini
Red Cabbage
Thai Basil
Cilantro
Dill
Good morning,
I hope everybody enjoyed the cloud cover and rain last week. Mmmmmm, it was so lovely and much needed. Most of our rain arrived on Thursday night and Friday night. I love falling asleep to the sound of rain. It made for a muddy and slower weekend here, which felt wonderful.
Harvest season is here folks. Something that needs picked pretty much every day... the tomatoes, zucchini and beans are currently keeping us busy.
Oh tomatoes, yours truly is always paranoid about them. I am constantly worried they're going to get a disease of some sort and die. So up until the point where we are actually harvesting ripe tomatoes I look at them with concern, shout at them to grow 'big and strong' and doubt that they will produce. But here we are, the tomatoes are ripening and need harvested every other day. Now lets just hope the trellis is strong enough to hold them up! Oh the taste of Summer is so so good. Enjoy the tomatoes! And I'll try to worry about them less in the future... ;)
We're planting for the Fall here and the late brassicas are in. Kale, collards, mustards, bok choy and napa cabbage were transplanted on Monday afternoon along with a round of head lettuce. They look so tiny compared to everything else growing in the field...
Harvest details for CSA Week #10:
Collards
Swiss Chard
Carrots
Beets
Scallions
Green Beans
Broccoli
Zucchini
Jalapeños
Beaver Dam Pepper
Heirloom Tomatoes
Cherry Tomatoes
Garlic
Cilantro
Dill
Rain drops are falling... which has your farmers letting out a big sigh of relief. The heat has been pounding down on us for weeks now and nothing is more welcome at this very moment then a few days of rain. Wahoo! They're calling for a couple inches of precipitation by the end of the week, which the farm will absolutely LOVE. Most of the field is weeded, so I'm hoping it rains, we blink and suddenly everything doubles in size. Magic!
Mike worked the former garlic field this week and we're going to try a few successions of head lettuce along with some late Fall brassicas.We seeded the first round of starts a few weeks ago and they're just about ready to go in the ground.
I'm happy to report that the tomatoes took their sweet time but they're on and harvests should increase over the next couple weeks. I have my solid 5 favorite heirloom varieties that I grow every season, along with a few trials to make sure I'm not missing something amazing. And, I think we have a contender to keep in the rotation this year. It's a variety called Katja that I got from Adaptive Seeds in Oregon. It's an early (first to ripen this season!), beautiful pink slicer with wonderful flavor. Loving it.
Tomato hornworms are gorgeous as ever and abundant this year. They were on the outside tomatoes early and recently I've been finding a lot in the greenhouse, chomping away, which turns every tomato harvest into a tracking mission.
We picked the first green beans and pickling cucumbers on Monday morning and will harvest more today... purple and yellow beans should be shortly behind. Ooo ooo ooo! The slicing cucumbers are always a little bit slower and we should have those in the shares in the next week or so. And, I did a trial planting of peppers outside, mostly because I started a few too many and ran out of space in the greenhouse but also because this is my first season growing food in Mancos and I'm was curious how they would do. And so far, they're doing great. If anything has loved the heat this season has brought, it's the peppers. We harvested the first round of jalapeños this week and they're in your CSA shares. The heat on them seems to vary though, so be cautious if you're not a fan.
The garlic has been hanging in the barn curing for the past few weeks and I think it's almost ready to cut down and sort. Maybe the perfect project for a rainy day...
Ok, onto the harvest details for CSA Harvest - Week #9:
Kale
Chard or Mustard Greens
Carrots
Beets
Red Cabbage
Kohlrabi
Heirloom Tomato
Cherry Tomatoes
Pepper
Jalapeños
Zucchinis
Cilantro
Dill
Garlic
Have a great day! See you all this afternoon for a rainy CSA pickup.
The dahlias are blooming AND my experimental planting of outdoor peppers are impressing me. We have Sweet Chocolate peppers ripening... yes! Look for these as well as bells in this week's share. 
Red Cabbage
