Week 5

I hope everyone has had a lovely long weekend.  The farmer spends these summer days with his gaze turned away from the blue skies, with his back bent and his eyes, stinging with sweat and clouded with dust, fixed on the earth.  It’s easy to miss whole days if we don’t stop every now and then, stand up straight for a moment and breathe it in.  I’ve been feeling especially grateful this weekend for these stolen, reflective moments.

Colorado Potato Bettles being gross.

 The past week we have been mostly directing our energies towards our solanaceous crops.  Tomatoes need trellising, peppers need weeding and eggplant want our help in repelling an invasion of Colorado Potato Beetles.  CPBs feed primarily on potato plants but can eat any member of the solanaceous family.  Eggplant seems to be their meal of choice and with their ability to rapidly multiple CPBs larvae can defoliate entire plantings of Eggplant in a matter of a few weeks.  Colorado Potato Beetles are one of the few pests that we spray for using organically approved Entrust.  Unlike conventional “kill on contact” sprays, Entrust is applied to the plant foliage and only pest insects which consume leaves from these plants are harmed.  To avoid building up a population of tolerant bugs (and because Entrust is wicked expensive) we still end up hand picking and squishing a lot of these ugly little guys.  It’s like Starship Troopers out there.  My crew will be having nightmares for weeks.

On July 19^th, just a little under two weeks from now, we will be hosting our annual Garlic Harvest volunteer day.  Come get stinky with us as we bring in and string up this year’s garlic.  If you just can’t wait for the 19^th to volunteer, come join us this Saturday in the pick your own fields to help us weed.  We look forward to seeing you at one or both of these events.  Hope you can make it!     

In the share: Lettuce, greens, cabbage, broccoli, radishes,  scallions, fennel, PYO peas, flowers and herbs

New this week:  Beets and garlic scapes