(Mt. Vernon, Iowa)
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Greetings shareholders,
This week, we'll have onions, potatoes, leeks, beans, bell peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, chard, kale, chilies, and herbs. The Monday people will get sweet corn if we can get the tractor to the field without getting stuck in the lingering mud, and Thursday people will get corn if it stays nice until then. The sweet corn seems to be maturing more unpredictably than usual this summer, and has not been as sweet as we expect, probably from the cool weather. This will be the last week for corn.
Well, it's been quite a week since the last newsletter. We didn't have any rain for 3 days last weekend and so were able to dig lots of potatoes last Tuesday, even though it was still pretty muddy. Then, late that afternoon, I was finally able to do some tillage (it was still too muddy, but it had to be done then or not at all) and to throw some spinach, radish, and greens seeds into the ground before the rain began Tuesday night. Between Tuesday and Friday, we had about 7.5" of rain, not as much as some places got, but waaaaaay too much. The radishes are peeking out of the ground tonight, but with the amount of soil that moved during those heavy rains, I'm guessing that the spinach and greens might have washed away. So, the first half of this week I'll try again to get some spinach and other fall greens to grow. The lettuce I seeded on the 15th looks good, a bit battered, but alive. Spinach, on the other hand, is turning out to be a challenge.
My buddy Schanckenberg doesn't think it's going to rain again until Thursday, so we're going to try to get more potatoes on Wednesday afternoon of this week. Hope it will be dry enough by then. Please zap me a note if you'd like to help. Maureen Boots and Jan Scharnberg came by last week to help with digging and seemed to have a good time. Digging potatoes is a little like Easter and Christmas, with mud.
When the rain started on Tuesday night, the potatoes we had dug were still in the buckets from the field. The buckets filled up with water and stayed full for at least 2 days before I was able to dump them and wash and dry the potatoes. I don't think sitting in water that long was good. I'm not sure, but the potatoes might have been damaged and we might find that they cannot be stored. So, to be sure that they don't go to waste, EAT THEM. Look for some good potato recipes and fix them a couple of times in the upcoming week. We'll work our way though the ones that were soaked and next week or so be back to the regular cured ones that can be stored longer.
We had a great crew of about 25 incoming Cornell students who came to do some volunteer work on Saturday morning. It was a real pleasure to have them here. They made a big dent in the work that needs to be done to get the hoophouse planted for winter, harvested crops for this week, and weeded the chili peppers. I sure appreciated their help.
I think I might have a secret admirer. I woke up last Monday morning to find a big pile of wonderful, rotten manure on my compost pile. What a great gift!!!! Whoever you are, thanks!!!!!
See you this week,
Laura
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Posted by Laura
@ 11:12 PM CDT
Greetings shareholders,
This week, we have sweet corn, onions, beets, green beans, cabbage, chard, kale, tomatoes, green peppers, eggplant, squash, and herbs. The sweet corn will be some combination of Bodacious and/or Serendipity, depending on which is nicer the day we are picking for you. Again, the ears aren't big and fancy (because of incomplete pollination because of too much weed pressure because of the broken tractor in June when first cultivation should have happened), but are very tasty. I think you will enjoy either kind. Serendipity is a white/yellow "bicolor' type; Bodacious has all yellow kernels.
We will finish the Ailsa Craig onions this week. If you've still got some at home, eat them fast. They aren't going to last much longer. We'll be starting on the Super Star onions, another very sweet type that won't store very well. Beans will be round or flat-podded, either yellow or green. I think you'll find the flat, or Italian type beans, to be sweet and tender, although you might not guess that by looking at them. They are my favorite bean now.
The tomatoes are in pretty bad shape from all the cold and wet, especially those in the first planting. Overall, the sauce types are far more healthy and productive than are the slicer types, so start thinking about recipes that use more "meaty", less juicy tomatoes. This week, we started picking the Juliettes, a small "saladette" type that you can use like a cherry tomato. The plants in the second planting are still alive and making new fruit, so if we can keep it warm for 3 or 4 more weeks, we might finally get the volume and quality that we expect in late summer in Iowa, except it will be early fall by then. Until then, we'll keep trickling them out to you!
This might be the last week for summer squash, and I think the cucumbers are finished. The winter squash look very nice with little disease and few insect pests. At least right now, it looks like we might have a nice squash harvest in October.
No potatoes yet. It's still too muddy to dig them. We have a crew lined up to try again on Tuesday morning (which will be 3 1/2 days since the last rain!!! Yippee!!!) and are hoping to get a pretty big pile of potatoes dug. If you want to help, let me know. After a morning of digging potatoes, you really feel like you've accomplished something.
Rain update: Sunday, August 16, 1.2" in the morning. Monday, August 17, .3". Wed, August 19, 1" in the afternoon. Thur, August 20, .5" rain overnight, then .1" in the afternoon. Friday, August 21, drizzle all day, .3" total. Total for the week: 3.4". A few dry days in a row: priceless.
The never ending rain has caused a significant delay in planting the fall crops. Usually, I get the fields ready the first week of August (usually quite dry), then plant the second week and wait for a little bit of rain to get the seeds growing. Luckily, I listened to my buddy Schnackenberg and last Saturday I mudded in some lettuce seed in the garden west of the farm driveway. It's come up nicely, so I'll bet we'll have lots of nice fall lettuce in October. Spinach planted the same day is having a little trouble germinating, so as soon as I can do some more tillage, I'll be planting lots of spinach and hoping that it hurries itself along so we can have spinach in October, too. Asian greens and radishes grow more quickly, but they need to be planted pretty soon, too, if we expect to enjoy them in October. October is the month for the green things!
I can't believe I am saying this, but I need you to bring plastic grocery bags. I try to keep a VERY FEW bags around here for the rare times that you might forget to bring yours, but with the way we've been using them for sweet corn, I've run out. Please bring enough for yourself this week, plus 3 or 4 more to leave here for somebody who forgets theirs. Please DON'T bring any more than that. I can't keep them on hand because they blow all over the shed and yard when we open the big doors during the day, and worse yet, mice eat them and use them to make nests for their babies if I leave them anywhere for very long. So, I'm not in the bag business, except for a couple more weeks while we have sweet corn. After all, you ALWAYS remember to bring your own, so I shouldn't need them!!!
I lose my last two daytime workers this week. Darn kids keep going back to college. I'm going to miss them.
Looking forward to seeing you this week,
Laura
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Posted by Laura
@ 10:20 PM CDT
Greetings shareholders,
This week, we'll have onions, leeks, tomatoes, broccoli, green beans, squash and zucchinis, cucumbers, green bell peppers, eggplant, cabbage, kale, chard, and herbs. There will also be sweet corn, but probably fewer than a dozen per share. The Monday people will get potatoes, but we probably won't have any for Thursday shareholders this week.
Welcome to the new shareholders who are joining Abbe Hills Garden CSA this week. Be sure to introduce yourselves to me. For you old timers, this is the 11th week of our summer season, halfway though. Wow, it happens so fast.
The onions I am sharing with you now are a sweet variety called "Ailsa Craig". Please eat them as fast as you can. They are cured, so you can store them outside of the refrigerator, but they are not good keepers. They contain so much sugar that they start to rot fairly quickly, unlike the storage onions we will have late in the fall that can be stored almost until spring. The Ailsa Craigs and the next ones, Super Star, are sweet and mild and are meant to be used in summer. I'll set out my "Onions, Onions, Onions" cookbook to give you some ideas about how to use them up.
There are actual mushrooms growing under the tomato plants today. Not a good thing. I harvested about 60 pounds of tomatoes this afternoon, the first harvest of the year, from the first planting of 178 tomato plants, which are about 1/3 slicers and 2/3 sauce types, planted on June 1. The plants are very sick with every kind of fungus and bacterial disease, the result of too much rain and cool, and have set relatively little fruit on most varieties. The second planting, 275 plants on June 16, has much healthier foliage and is just now setting its fruit. It includes the small saladette tomatoes, slicers, and about 100 sauce type plants. Let's hope for some warm and dry weather in the next 6 weeks to help the later tomatoes keep healthy and make lots of tasty fruit. And to get rid of those ridiculous mushrooms.
A new planting of green beans is just now ready to pick. They are gorgeous, and we'll pick them as fast as we can for you. At least you can pick green beans in the mud!
You'll notice that potatoes are going to be a problem this week. And, maybe next week, too. It's not like we don't have them. There are LOADS of them in the field. We usually dig potatoes one or two days every week this time of year, always digging a few more than we will need so we can get all of them out of the field before fall. (Actually, before my workers all go back to college, but we've kind of already missed that deadline!) But, we can't dig them in the mud. And we can't seem to get rid of the mud. We had 1.5" rain on Aug 7, .6" on Aug 9, .5" on Aug 10, .6" on Aug 13, and 1.2" so far today. As soon as we get 5 days in a row without rain, we'll dig like mad. You're all invited to join us! But, until those dry days come, we can't dig them because we can't see them. We tried on Friday of last week, and everything just looks like mud. So, we'll have potatoes on Monday until we run out, but no more after that until we get a break in the weather.
A couple of instructions for the new people and reminders for the old: Remember that we have a 1-way street around the buildings on Mondays and Thursdays. Come in the farm drive and go out the house drive. Please park as far away as you can; the best place is on the right side of the house driveway. When you park on both sides of the drive as it passes through the farm behind the shed, it gets to be a pretty skinny slot through which to slip. Drive out a little more and walk a little farther. You'll feel better and I won't worry about anybody getting sideswiped. If you can't walk that far, you can park in the shade in front of the open-front shed (and I promise I won't hassle you as long as I see you limp!) Also, please remember - no pets. I've seen the calmest, most disinterested, most unathletic dog you can imagine squish though a 1/4 open car window to take off after a kitty.
We're open from 4:30 until 7:00 on pickup nights. If you've got any questions about how the CSA operates, check out the website at http://www.abbehills.com/faqs/index.htm, or zap me a note.
Looking forward to seeing you this week,
Laura
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Posted by Laura
@ 12:51 AM CDT
Hello shareholders,
This week, we'll have sweet corn, green beans, cabbage, broccoli, zucchinis and summer squash, cucumbers, beets, chard, onions, potatoes, herbs, and maybe bell peppers.
The sweet corn on Thursday will be the variety called "Incredible"; Monday people will get whichever one is better when we pick in the morning, either "Incredible" or "Bodacious". I'm pretty sure I'll again have extra sweet corn to sell on Saturday morning, August 15th. I'll put out a sign-up sheet at the check-in table. The price will be $4 per dozen.
Well, I didn't see my hoophouse flying down Abbe Hills Road this evening, so I guess we survived the storm OK. We had a very nice and badly needed rain on Friday, about 1 1/2 inches. I think we've had about .4" so far today, Sunday. The mud and heat has made it pretty difficult to harvest over the weekend and I expect that Monday will be tough for my workers. We'll try to get some fresh green beans on Monday (if they are out there to get), but the Monday people might get some beans we picked last week if we can't get it all done in time tomorrow. They've been in the cooler and will be fine, but you shouldn't plan on storing them long (don't store anything! go on a vegetable eating frenzy! there will be more next week!). By the time it's time to get beans for Thursday, we should be able to get back in the garden.
The cucumbers and squash really needed the moisture on Friday. I expect they are as big as baseball bats since we haven't looked at them since Wednesday afternoon. Big cucumbers usually taste fine, but you might want to scrape the seeds out if they are tough. Big zucchinis are good on the grill or in baking. Really big zucchinis go to the chickens.
I think we can find enough big bell peppers to give everybody at least 1 this week. They should take off with the moisture and the heat. Finally, the heat we've been waiting for got here. YEAH. Tough on the workers; good for the garden. I'm spoiled and only like to eat bell peppers when they are ripe and have changed color, so I'm going to harvest the green ones conservatively so that we can have as many ripe peppers as possible later in the summer.
In preparation for the rain on Friday, we planted 16 rows of fall crops, including more beets, cabbage, kale, beans, turnips, and carrots. This is the 4th or 5th time I've planted carrots this summer. Maybe this time they will take. It is about impossible to get carrots to emerge out of the ground, but I'm hoping the warm soil and rainy weekend will give them the boost they need to get going. Fall carrots are fabulous. We'll be planting fall lettuce this week, and will be planting in the hoophouse within the next two weeks to get ready for the November/December shares that I hope to offer.
Here is a link to any article in today's New York Times about some of the difficulties in our food system. Farmers in the NE have been hit very hard with a tomato disease called "late blight", and the associated problems have gotten lots of press. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/opinion/09barber.html?_r=1 So many people have mentioned to me that their tomatoes are sicker than normal this year. We may not have late blight in Iowa, but we have lots of other diseases that strike tomatoes and their relatives (potatoes, eggplant, peppers, chilies). For a real horror show, check out this publication on tomato diseases from Iowa State. http://www.extension.iastate.edu/Publications/PM1266.pdf
My entry in the biggest cabbage competition at the 100th anniversary of Sauerkraut Days in Lisbon was totally humiliated by the winner. My biggest cabbage weighed 7 1/2 lbs, much too big for most of you, but was nothing compared to the winner, an 18 1/2 lb monster. It certainly was the biggest cabbage I've ever seen. Lucky for you, most of the cabbages we grow for you are bred to weigh between 2 and 4 pounds when we harvest them.
I've got more sweet corn than we can use, and will have to start mowing it down as it gets over-mature. I'd like to donate some to the food pantries and soup kitchens in Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, and/or Lisbon, but don't have the workforce to make it happen. If any of you could mobilize a small group of people who could pick corn, husk it, and then get it to town, it would be a real treat for hungry people who don't often get fresh sweet corn (which is a pity, in my opinion, when we have it in such abundance). We harvest corn on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings, starting about 8:00. A half dozen retired Presbyterians could pick 20 dozen ears in way less than an hour. It would need to be husked, and we would need boxes to put it in for transport. I can keep it in my cooler for a while, but would need somebody to deliver it to its destination later that day. If you've got a group, maybe from a church, who you think could handle a harvest and delivery, zap me a note. We will have excess corn this week for sure, and hopefully, for a few more weeks in the future.
See you this week,
Laura
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Posted by Laura
@ 10:33 PM CDT
Greetings shareholders,
This week, we have green beans, zukes and summer squash, cucumbers, cabbage, broccoli, onions, potatoes, leeks, kale, chard, and herbs.
The first sweet corn is nearly ready to start picking, but we have to wait until the official sweet-corn-decider (my dad) says it's time. We might start Monday morning, Thursday for sure. Either way, I planted wayyyy toooo much, more than you can eat in a week, and more than we can harvest in a day. So, I'll take orders and have extra sweet corn for sale Saturday. If you want corn for the freezer, this would be a good time to get it because it might be the nicest corn we have this season. The variety is "Bodacious", which I think is the best one we have, and the weeds are not too terrible, so the ears should be a nice size, although the ears are always a little small with this variety. The logistics are going to be complicated because I need to be selling raffle tickets at Sauerkraut Days Saturday morning, but we'll figure out something. Sweet corn won't wait, especially when daytime temps are above 80 degrees. Let me know when you come for your veggies if you think you'll want some Saturday.
If it stays warm, we should have "Incredible" sweet corn next week. I think there could be a few green sweet peppers, too.
We did find one red tomato last week. It was rotten on the bottom, but it's something!
We had a nice open house Sunday night. About 30 people from all over Iowa came by to tour the farm, hoophouse, and gardens.
This is the last week that I'll have tickets for the Southeast Linn Community Center raffle. Please buy a few.
See you this week,
Laura
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Posted by Laura
@ 11:35 PM CDT
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