What’s in the share:
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| Very large basil leaves. Quarter for scale! |
- Lettuce
- Kale
- Chard
- Radishes
- Salad Turnips
- Garlic Scapes
- Kohlrabi
- Bok Choi
- Broccoli
- Summer Squash/Zucchini
- Cabbage
- Fennel
- PYO Parsley
- PYO Basil
- PYO Dill
- PYO Cilantro
- PYO Flowers
Updates from the fields
We are looking for volunteers to help us harvest and hang
garlic next Saturday. Come join us in
the CSA barn anytime between 8am and noon (Saturday morning PYO hours) if you
are interested in helping us bring in the bounty. Garlic is a fairly easy and very fun crop to
harvest and in past years we’ve had volunteers of all ages join us. Garlic harvesting tasks include pulling
garlic up out of the ground, loading it onto our truck, bundling garlic stalks
into bunches and hanging the bunches in the barn to cure.
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| Still weeks from ready but it won't be long now |
Next week we begin harvesting our garlic. This is the high point in a cycle which began
late last October when we planted our biggest and best garlic bulbs into the quickly
cooling soil. We covered the garlic beds
with mulch hay and those pungent sleeping pearls remained cozy and semi dormant
through the long cold winter. In the spring
garlic sprouts where the first green growing things we saw in our fields. In the early summer we pulled the garlic scapes (the
developing flower bud of the garlic plant) to encourage strong bulbs to form. If you have been out in the fields to pick
herbs this season you’ve probably noticed the blue-green stalks over your right
shoulder. Maybe you’ve followed the
progression of the lower leaves and leaf tips as they have faded to a golden
yellow: a sign that the garlic is almost ready to harvest. We won’t know exactly how well the garlic did
this year until we begin pulling up bulbs and that is a big part of the fun. Once all of the garlic is harvested we hang
it in the barn to cure for a couple of months.
This greatly increases the shelf life of the garlic. Finally we will sort the garlic bulbs by size
into small, medium, large and extra large categories. Medium and large bulbs will be distributed in
the share room while extra large bulbs will be divided and replanted for next season’s
garlic.
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| Lettuce fresh from the field |
In other news we will continue our efforts to trellis the
tomatoes this week. We have also begun
planting our fall Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage. As always weeding and cultivating are tasks
we are hope to stay on top of this week.
Although I sometimes look at the fields and feel as though we can’t
possibly do it all, I am very pleased with the way this season is going so far. Each week the farm crew surprises me with
their passion and drive in surmounting our Herculean list of tasks. As always I encourage you to thank your
farmers whenever you see the chance.
