Starbrite Farm Update #11
Hi Everyone,

This past week we finished harvesting the onion crop, which is a great
relief. With these wet and humid conditions everyday that they
remained in the field they were in danger of rotting. Now we can turn
our attention to other pressing matters such as getting the weeds
under control in the winter squash and elsewhere, and beginning to
transplant the fall broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower.

The beets have finally sized up so we will be shipping them this week.
There will be some regular purple types and some Chioggia beets, an
Italian heirloom, also known as Candy cane which is white with red
rings inside. The eggplant and tomatoes have begun to produce so they
will be in the share for this week as well.

The tomatoes are rather small and there aren’t that many ripe just
yet, but it’s a start. The truth is that my tomato crop looks terrible
and I don’t expect a very good season for tomatoes this year. You have
probably heard about the problem of late blight on tomatoes in NJ.
This disease, also known as phytoptera is what caused the Irish potato
famine, and is quite devastating. I heard that one local farm lost
their entire crop of tomatoes and potatoes. Fortunately we have not
seen any sign of it yet here at the farm. But there is a plethora of
other diseases affecting the tomatoes; even the tomatoes in the
greenhouse have been affected.

We still have an abundance of the sweet onion, so we will be sending
these again this week, as they aren’t great keepers. While I normally
only send one member of the Allium family each week, I know that many
of you are waiting for more garlic, so we will be sending it as
well.

The share for this week will be: Red Boston lettuce, garlic, sweet
onions, All Blue potatoes, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, fennel, string
beans, and choice of an herb.

The fruit share will be nectarines and Kagman apples.
Enjoy!
Farmer John