Abbe Hills Farm CSA

Greetings shareholders,

This week, we'll have potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, the last of the carrots, a few cucumbers, edamame soybeans, eggplant, chilies, peppers, and herbs.  The Monday people will get the last of the sweet corn.  The Thursday people might also get a few green beans and some okra if they are ready, or we'll have those things starting next Monday.  I'm giving you a week off from onions so you can work your way through the summer sweets.

I expect there will be extra sweet corn Tuesday morning.  If you'd like some for the freezer, let me know before 9:00 Monday night so I can save some for you.  It's $4 per dozen.  If you don't claim it by then, volunteers from Cedar Rapids are coming Tuesday to get everything else out of the field for distribution at Metro High School, a soup kitchen, and a couple of food pantries.  I'm so happy that none of the corn has been wasted this season.  Almost every ear that was decent has found a home in somebody's belly.  Not so good for the hens, but nice for people who don't often get fresh sweet corn.

The thing that was eating tomatoes went away.  I still don't know what it was, but it apparently got full, so it left.  We picked scads of tomatoes this afternoon and they are amazingly nice.  Not perfect, but not bad.  I think you'll like them much better than the stinkers we've been having.

We are picking cucumber crop #5 for the first time this week.  I've been so disappointed with the cucumbers, as well as nearly everything else in that plant family this summer.  Cucumber crops numbers 1 through 4 had issues because of ground squirrels (#1), cucumber beetles (# 2 and #4), and weeds (#2 and #3).  Number 5 is healthy so far and #6 is about 2 weeks away from harvest and looking good.  Remember back in the good old days when I used to bring in 10 or 15 buckets of cucumbers and squash two times a week?  Maybe they'll return next year.

Edamames are soybeans that you eat while they are still green.  There are about 3 beans per pod, and about 10 pods per stem.  I'm going to cut the stems and give you a handful with the pods still attached.  Picking the pods off is a good job for the kids.  Blanch the whole pods, cool quickly, dress with salt or soy sauce, then squish the little beans out of the pods and into your mouth.  Don't eat the pods.  They are hairy and tough.   The beans are a great snack.  A lot of trouble, but great.  Luckily, you can buy them by the bag in the frozen section of the grocery store when the ones we have here run out.

We had a very good rain on Tuesday morning, about 2.2 inches.  It really was a gift.  We started irrigating the gardens about 10 days ago and really haven't stopped except for the day it rained.  It's still quite dry and I'd be happy to have another 2 inches this week, although my buddy Schnackenberg doesn't think it is likely.  One good thing about the dry is that we'll be able to dig the rest of the potatoes this upcoming weekend.  Cornell is sending me about 30 volunteers and hopefully, if everything goes as planned, they'll be able to get the last 4 tons or so of potatoes out of the ground and into bags in the shed.  Most will be for us and for Local Harvest CSA, but some will go to the food pantries at the end of the season.

Bring plenty of bags this week.  See you later,

Laura