Week 7

Garlic garlands makes the barn look great, smell great and keeps the undead at bay!

In spite of the heat we managed to get quite a bit accomplished this week.  The Great Garlic Harvest of 2013 has finally been completed.  All those lovely bulbs have been bunched and hung up to dry.  The barn looks really spectacular festooned in this fashion and the smell is truly incredible.  We have taken to affectionately referring to the space as ¨the garlic cave¨, and i think it should provide great peace of mind to all that Appleton Farms CSA is now vampire proof.  In about 6 weeks time the garlic will be dried and cured and ready to be sorted into seed for next year or bulbs to be distributed to our members. 

While the hot weather was very taxing on us farmers, we made sure to pay it forward with interest to the weeds.  We thinned and hand weeded beets and we made tremendous gains in clearing out the weeds in our celeriac beds.  With stirrup hoes we molested the weeds that encroached upon our winter squash.  We used string trimmers to subdue the weeds that had shot up between the beds of eggplant, and the cultivating tractors were never long idle.  The scorching weather may have jerkyed some of us farmers but it was at least as desiccating to the weeds.  So while the farmers might be looking a little frayed around the edges the fields are beginning to look almost tidy!  Good work team.

At the end of last week we dug the first of our potatoes.  Our tractor driven single row potato digger makes this task a lot easier by scooping beneath the potato plants, agitating the soil particulates and sifting the potatoes to the soil surface.  Our harvest team follows behind the tractor and a kind of scavenger hunt begins.  Most potatoes can be picked up as easily as picking daisys but to make sure that we don´t leave any good potatoes behind we also comb through the top few inches of soil in search of stragglers.  This weeks share will include buttery delicious Red Gold potatoes.

While working in the fields at Appleton, our farmers cross paths with members doing Pick-your-own almost daily.  This week we received such an outpouring  of  support from many of our members.  Your words of thanks and encouragement have a great and inspiring impact on us, especially during some of our tougher weeks.  From all of us farmers, a heart felt thank you for all the spontaneous appreciation.

What´s in the share: Lettuce, carrots, beets, napa cabbage, kale, chard, summer squash and zucchini, cucumbers, broccoli, Ailsa Craig onions, PYO flowers, PYO herbs, PYO green, purple and yellow beans.

New this week: Red Gold potatoes and eggplant.