Letter from Farmer John: August 14th 2007

Hi Everyone,

Last Friday we received over 2 ½ inches of rain, a lot more than I would have liked. Harvesting for the weekend markets was a bit difficult and now the fields are to wet to work the ground, so I am a little set back in planting the fall crops. On Thursday we planted a few thousand broccoli plants, the rain was at least beneficial to them.

We are continuing to harvest lots of beans and cukes and the tomatoes are also starting to come in heavily, including some of the heirloom varieties. The beans for this week will include an heirloom variety called Dragon Langerie. It is a flat wax bean with purple streaking and is quite tender and sweet. They are not a shell bean; use them as you would a normal string bean. We will also be shipping bunched adolescent lettuce, in between a baby leaf and a full sized head. It is very tender and makes a nice salad.

The share for this week will be: Tomatoes, peppers, summer squash, cucumbers, lettuce, garlic, choice of carrots or Chioggia(candy cane) beets, beans, choice of arugula or other mustard greens, sweet corn (conventionally grown-but freshly picked) and choice of an herb. There will also be eggplant for those groups which did not receive it last week as promised.

Enjoy! Farmer John