Week 13: Rain relief

The past two weeks it has felt a little like we were farming in the Dust Bowl, so while this weekend's rain might have put a damper on some of your Labor day weekend plans, to us farmers it's a bit of a relief. We've been rotating our irrigation set-up around our fall crops, like brassicas, spinach, carrots and beets, as well as running drip lines on our tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and sweet potatoes. I had been waiting to seed cover crop on some of our fields until there was rain in the forecast, but by the beginning of last week, we finally just seeded peas and oats on our spring brassica field and irrigated afterwards in order to ensure good germination. Peas and oats are our preferred cover crops before mid September. In addition to helping prevent soil erosion, peas help fix nitrogen in the soil for next season, and both peas and oats are killed by the cold winter temperatures, meaning less debris to work into the soil when we plow next spring.

This week we are hoping to seed more cover crops, seed some of our last greens and radishes in the field, transplant our last lettuce planting, harvest the rest of our yellow storage onions, and begin to harvest our winter squash. Both the onions and squash need to cure before we distribute them in the share, as the curing process helps ensure good flavor and longer storage life.

What's in the share: Lettuce, Greens, Escarole, Chard, Celery, Beets, Danvers Carrots, Summer Squash/Zucchini, Eggplant, Peppers, Slicing Tomatoes (red and pink), Heirloom Tomatoes, Plum Tomatoes, Potatoes, Marini's Sweet Corn, PYO Cherry and Mini Plum Tomatoes, PYO Husk Cherries, PYO Beans, PYO Flowers, PYO Herbs.
New this week: Leeks, Chioggia or Golden Beets.