Abbe Hills Farm CSA

Greetings shareholders,

This week, we have potatoes, onions, leeks, beets, squash, basil, cilantro, beans, tomatoes, peppers, chilies, kale, and collards.  The onions will be Yellow Spanish.  Normally, these would be storage onions, but they aren't in the greatest condition, so you should plan to use them quickly.  Once again, disease in the field in June is affecting what's available now.  Late leeks look very nice; we'll know for sure when we start harvesting them this week. Tomatoes continue to die faster than they live, but they still taste great so we'll just keep picking them.  Like last week, they have lots of blemishes and cracks and dings that will affect their storability.  Keep them at room temperature, on the counter where you can keep an eye on them, cracks facing down, and eat them fast.

We might be able to get enough eggplants for everybody to have one this week.  The eggplant saga is complicated and long.  It starts well.  I love eggplants like I love shoes - you can never have too many different kinds of either one.  So, I got a little carried away and somehow ended up with about 2000 eggplant plants this spring.  We planted them at the end of June and they did well for a while.  But, in mid-July a very horrible pest, the Colorado potato beetle, strolled out of the potato patch and found them.  We had had a small amount of damage from potato beetle in the potatoes, but since I am more likely to depend on the natural enemies of our pests than I am on insecticides, I let them go with minimal treatment.  Big mistake.  In my life, I've seen about two dozen potato beetles until this year.  This year, I've seen two dozen beetles on the top two leaves of every single eggplant plant in the field.  We treated them with two different insecticides six different times, and still have barely been able to reduce their population to a level that we can tolerate.  I've used more insecticides (OK, only about a quart in total) on this one crop than I have used in five years on all crops combined.  And still, they live and eat and lay eggs.  We are now seeing the larvae of the third generation.  They eat the eggplant plants and the fruits, and they've also moved into the tomatoes and have destroyed the fruit from at least forty plants.  They are a NIGHTMARE.  And they'll likely be here next year, too.  However, next year I am going to blast them with whatever it takes to get them gone as soon as possible.   The good news is that, even though they have destroyed half of the eggplant plants, there are still about 1000 plants left, so there should be enough eggplant fruit to make everybody happy.  Hopefully, we can start harvesting it this week.  But no mountains of beautiful eggplant in six colors and eight shapes this year.  (I know how sad that makes you.)

We have started cutting okra.  Strangely, we have a large group of okra loving people among the Abbe Hills shareholders.  There won't be enough for everybody, so I've devised a rationing system.  This week, I think we have enough for about four families.  So, if you or your parents were born somewhere between 23 degrees north and 23 degrees south of the equator, you can have okra.  Next week, we'll have a little more, so you will be able to have some if you or your parents were born south of Interstate 40.  The week after, if you have ever lived south of I40.  The week after that, we'll turn everybody loose on the okra and hope no fights break out.   I'd grow more for you, but it's so absolutely awful to harvest that I have to trick my workers into cutting it for you, and they can usually only be tricked once.  I run out of workers before I run out of okra.

We'll have three kinds of garlic this week.  They are German Red (the kind you have been getting), Chesnot Red, and a kind we don't know that I call "Gary" in honor of Gary Guthrie, who gave me the seed.   You'll only get the small heads because I have to save at least 50 pounds of big ones to plant next year's crop.  Take one of each and do a taste test at home.  Tell me which one you like and maybe we can plant more of it.  I'm not sure that we will have garlic again; depends on how much is left after this week and your recommendations.

If you've given me a check in the last two months, you may be wondering why I haven't cashed it.  The truth is that I've only had enough time to open the bills, and the rest of my mail since early July is on a pile.  Hopefully, I'll get it opened sometime this week and will work my way through the CSA paperwork finally and have time to go to the bank.  If I've lost it, I'll figure it out and get back with you.  More likely, it's safely buried somewhere in the pile of mail.

We've got the deer fence up and fully electrified.  The fall lettuce is protected!!!!  I'm optimistic.

Hoping for some rain this week to get the fall crops up and growing while there is still some warmth.  We'll take half or three-quarters of an inch.  Might interfere with the potato digging later in the week, but we'll figure it out when we get there.  There are lots of hills of potatoes left to dig (maybe not so many potatoes, however.  The summer potatoes have been yielding quite poorly in both quantity and quality), and I will need help to get it all done.  If you or a group to which you belong want to help, please let me know.

See you this week,

Laura