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.
Good morning,
How is it already the last week of July?! Eek. Summer slow down and stay a while... please.
We have been blessed with clouds the last couple days which have made for wonderful weeding and harvesting conditions. And I am happy to report it feels like we're starting to catch up on projects around here. The field is mostly weeded, mostly being the key word there. We're going to make a final push to tackle a few sections in the coming days as it looks like next week rain arrives, fingers crossed! We could use a couple rainy days... aka time in the kitchen!
We set up trellis for a row of pole beans on Monday, woohoo! Climbing beans are gorgeous... we seeded Rattlesnakes Beans, which are on of my favorites for fresh eating and Borlotto Gaston, an Italian cranberry bean that is gorgeous, delicious, meaty and huge. I grew them for the first time last season and fell in love. Grow beauties grow!
Brassicas are so beautiful! I cannot get enough... the kale is growing like mad and these storage kohlrabi are, well, enormous. Enjoy the broccoli this week, I squealed with excitement while harvesting it. The cauliflower is just starting to form heads, they're about golf ball size at the moment.
We'll be seeding the next round of greens tomorrow, salad greens, arugula, mustard greens, lettuce trays, etc. FYI, in the weeding madness I think we missed a salad mix and arugula seeding so those may not be in the shares over the next couple weeks but more are on the way.
Cherry tomatoes are on and they taste like summer! I harvested a few heirlooms this week too... so we should be enjoying those in no time. Wahoo!
OK, onto the harvest details, CSA Harvest - Week #8:
Salad Greens
Kale
Chard
Carrots
Beets
Scallions
Broccoli
Cabbage
Zucchini
Cherry Tomatoes!
Cilantro
Basil
Garlic
Have a wonderful day! See you all this afternoon
Good morning,
I slept in a little bit and right as I was pouring a cup of coffee this water color of a sunrise began to unfold. So I ran outside in PJs, spilling coffee all over the place to get a couple photos and enjoy the gorgeous light. Mmmmm hmmm.
AND, IT RAINED!!
We have been asking and hoping for rain for weeks and on Monday evening a storm rolled through and it rained quite a bit and made for a rather muddy harvest morning yesterday, which I loved. The air was cool, the plants were happy and clouds moved in and out.
And last night... around 9:30 or 10 thunder clouds rolled in and it poured! The skies opened up and dropped a heavy and steady rain for an hour or so and then it continued to rain more throughout the night. Aaaahh, so wonderful. The ground is soaked, the plants love it and I am about to put on my rain (err mud) boots to finish up a few harvest items this morning before heading your way.
We have been weeding fools around here but I think we're about to get a handle on them, fingers crossed.
We finished pulling and hanging the last of the garlic and french shallots on Friday, wahoo! And we turned in a lot of the early spring beds that were bolting and past their prime and I seeded the next round of greens.
The zucchini and cucumbers are blooming, so we should have those in the shares very soon and the cherry tomatoes are oh so close. In the next week or two you will be enjoying these little jewels!
We are already 7 weeks in to the CSA Season, which means Summer is flying by a little too fast. I will be sending out details and reminding people to sign up for the Fall CSA next week. Yes, it's middle of Summer but this girl is thinking about and planning Fall harvests. Always looking forward.
This week's share includes the following:
Salad Greens
Arugula
Lacinato Kale
Chard
Cilantro
Carrots
Beets
Kohlrabi
Scallions
Broccoli
Peas (probably the last of the season)
See everybody this afternoon, probably in rain gear!
Good morning!
Coffee and the calm of this early morning are heavenly. Mmmm, I'm writing my to-do list for the day and will head outside shortly to finish this week's CSA Harvest. CSA Members, thank you for joining us this season! I'm happy to report this has been our most bountiful start to a season yet and looking out at the field I think that will continue as the season progresses. I hope you're finding inspiration in the kitchen to use up all those greens and veggies that you're maybe not so familiar with.
We spent a couple days harvesting and hanging garlic this week. All of the softnecks are out of the field and hung and most of the hard necks are as well. Woohoo!
We have had a couple amazing friends helping us out at the farm and we're starting to get a handle on the weeds (fingers crossed that doesn't change as soon as I state it!). The brassicas are weeded and huge so hopefully they'll take over and be set for the season.
The zucchini are weeded and flowering and beans are right behind them. Next up... weeding and thinning the beets, carrots and parsnip.
The cherry tomatoes are close, I have found a few ready for snacking so we should be harvesting these to share in no time.
We seeded a round of fall brassicas last week and they're already up and growing. Yes, it's the middle of Summer but we're already thinking about Fall and the many things we want to have available for our Fall CSA.
Ok, on to the harvest details for Week #6:
Salad Greens
Head Lettuce
Arugula
Kale
Chard
Kohlrabi
Carrots
Scallions
Peas
Basil
Cilantro
Pepper! (Green bell of Beaver Dam **my favorite)
Good morning!
Lacinato Kale
