Hi Everyone,

As I imagine you have noticed, the unseasonable warmth and dryness continues. There are predictions for some rain about midweek and a slight drop in temperatures into the weekend, but still no frost expected for the next 2 weeks.

This is great news as we can continue to enjoy summer veggies for another few weeks and perhaps even see a resurgence of tomatoes. We have begun heavily pruning the late planting of tomatoes to encourage the plants to ripen their fruit rather than continue to put their energy into flowering and excessive vegetative growth. There are over a thousand plants and several thousand pounds of green fruit that should start to ripen soon.

The peppers and eggplant continue to produce abundantly. Late plantings of beans are beginning to flower and the summer squash has small fruit growing.

Meanwhile we are busy harvesting the winter squash, pumpkins and gourds. Soon we will begin harvesting the sweet potatoes, which appear to have produced a good crop. The fall broccoli and cabbage are beginning to form heads and should be ready to cut in 2 weeks. The Hakurei salad turnips are beginning to size up and will be in the share this week. The greens are beautiful, tender, and nutritious and can be used in salads or sautéed/steamed.

We also have lettuce again, with Green leaf for this week and Boston and Romaine to follow in the coming weeks. We will also be shipping Tatsoi this week, a mild Asian mustard green which is great in stir fries or mixed into salads.

Next week we will de delivering pumpkins. While all pumpkins are edible, there are some such as Long Island Cheese and Jarradale which are better for making soups, cakes and pies. I would like to take a poll this week to know your preference for an ornamental or a cooking type, so I can bring the appropriate # of each.

The share for this week will be: Lettuce, potatoes, sweet corn (conventional), peppers, eggplant, Hakurei turnips, Tatsoi, white onions, Butternut squash, beans, choice of an herb, and some form of tomatoes (either cherries, slicers, plums, or small salad)

Enjoy!

Farmer John