Abbe Hills Farm CSA

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