Week 16

Red and yellow onions curing
in the greenhouse

Last week was a very productive week for the crew, as we not only finally finished hauling in our yellow storage onions, but we also harvested all our red onions and began the shallot harvest as well. The red onions will need to sit in the greenhouse to finish curing for another week or two before they are fully dried out and cured, but most of our yellow onions are fully cured and ready to be cleaned off this week to prepare for distribution the following week. With the cooler mornings we've been experiencing lately, onion cleaning will be a good project to start the day off. Even with a later 7am start time these days, the morning temperatures in the past week have usually been in the upper 40s, which in combination with the morning dew leads to some numb fingers for our farmers during lettuce and greens harvest! By about 8am, most of the fields are in full sun and it has warmed up enough to make the harvest more pleasant, so whenever possible we'll spend the first hour of the morning working on onions in the warmer greenhouse.

We also made a significant dent in our winter squash harvest last week, with only the Red Kuri and Buttercup squash now remaining in the field. This week we'll begin distributing Spaghetti squash and Acorn in the share. These two types of squash have the shortest shelf life of all our winter squash, so they should be used sooner rather than later (though they can still keep for up to a month or two under ideal storage conditions). If you do want to save them for later use, keep them in a dry, dark  and cool (between 50 and 55 degrees) place.

This week we'll take a break from the potatoes and leeks in the share while we attempt to finish off the harvest of our winter squash and shallots, as well as begin harvesting popcorn and sweet potatoes for curing in the greenhouse. Potatoes will be back in the share the following week, but we'll probably hold off on leeks until a little later in the season when we will harvest the storage varieties.

Thanksgiving share forms are available again this week in the shareroom. Be sure to pick one up!

What's in the share: Lettuce, Greens, Escarole, Carrots, Cauliflower, Broccoli (maybe), Fennel, Eggplant, Peppers, Slicing Tomatoes, Heirloom Tomatoes, Plum Tomatoes, Garlic, PYO Cherry Tomatoes, PYO Husk Cherries, PYO Hot Peppers, PYO Green Beans, PYO Flowers, PYO Herbs.
New this week: Spaghetti Squash, Acorn Squash, Kale, Spinach, Scallions, Celery.