Another week in which I repeatedly found myself amazed at my luck, to have somehow ended up living this life, in this place, with these people and animals.

I never felt right, working a career in a downtown office, wondering How did I get here?! But there seemed no alternative, and it was a tender trap … free coffee, big paychecks, no overtime. But every day I would come home to Kristin and exclaim about how strange it was, how I felt like an alien and how it wore at me …. anyway, just saying: I love my life, growing these vegetables and these children and these beautiful experiences, day after day. The punk rockers I grew up with don’t seem to understand how I can be content away from the city, the scenes, the shows, the bars, the tunnels … but this is the life I was unknowingly yearning for all along, and it just took some years and some luck and love from my wonderful wife to finally find it. 

Yup.

Also, it rained a little bit again – although the big 1″ all-day soaker we were promised turned out to be a slight fifth of an inch. The lack of mosquitoes has been lovely, if I don’t let myself be disquieted by it.  I thank Ranger for the shortage of mice.  Oh, and it was chilly in the mornings, and dark later. We are adapting, slowly, our blood still thinned by the summer’s heat domes.

What the heck am I writing about, this hasnt even gone off the rails, there never even was a track. “Kristin, what happened this week?”

<non-committal face made in response>

<silence continues>

hmmm

inside Box 14

• a Naked Bear Pumpkin – these are seed pumpklins – the flesh isn’t great but the seeds are plentiful and delicious – and hull-less, which is why they’re “naked.” The flesh could maybe be roasted and used in a soap or something but the seeds are really the point here. Clean, dry, season, bake, cool, eat.

• Salad Turnips
• Curly Blue Kale
• a small bag of Cherry Tomatoes
• a few Tomatoes – these are slowing waaaay down now.
• Beautiful Sweet Peppers = some Carmens and some other ones too. Fajitas might be in order this week.
• Eggplants – Kristin made us a breaded baked eggplant dish the other day with Parmesan and panko, and I was reminded of how enjoyable these can be.
• a zucchini – unless you’re one of the 3 random boxes that didn’t get one. because we didn’t have enough!
• Red Onions
• Beets – last for the season
• Carrots
• Thyme – this would go well with roasted carrots and beets. And you could combine those with the kale and the pumpkin seeds and make one hell of a tasty salad.

The Little Greenhouse has been emptied. Which is to say, the final seedlings have been transplanted out into the field.

It’s kind of odd, putting these tender babies out even as our calendar is reminding us of looming potential first frost dates … but this is the nature of our short growing season, and the nature of life itself. 

Winter is coming, yup, but it sure isn’t around these parts just yet.

Turns out that highs in the upper 80’s don’t feel all that much more awesome to work in than the upper 90s did. But at least it finally rained a decent amount – on Saturday (during the farmer’s market, natch) – a whopping 0.98″! Was the first one-incher since the hailstorm back in June.  We’re still 50 or 60 percent below the average rain for the year.

It’s dry, but we have been specializing in moisture maximization. all along … so we have a tool set to work with, as things get drier and hotter more often.

The High Tunnel Horror has been exposed as a particular hen.

We could put her in chicken jail, but her depredations to date have remained minimal; she’s not a voracious tomato-pecker, and seems to have specialized in small watermelons now … which works out as the ones she has hollowed have been of the variety we plant just to pollinate the yummy kind.  So we’ll wait and see.

Here’s some stuff Bandit didn’t eat, and you can:

Inside Box 13

• Edamame – You can’t eat the pods. Don’t. Instead you boil them and salt them and enjoy popping them out of their pods with your mouth. Or if there are too many to eat soon, you can freeze them, make hummus, toss them in stir fries, You probably have ideas.
• Cabbage – This is the final cabbage of the year. (Unless you consider Brussels Sprouts to he miniature cabbages, as we do).
• Broccoli – the fall crop arrives!
• Onions
• Garlic
• Carrots
• Radishes
• Zucchini
• Tomatoes
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Not Hot Peppers – Loose in the box. Everyone is getting different kinds, and I don’t know what yours is. Also, we can’t remember all these things.
• Hot Peppers – Jalepenos or Cherry Bombs. In a bag, not loose in the box with the not-hots.)

Summer’s peak continued to fade this week, with noticeably shorter days, less humidity, and at least one morning of temps in the 40s.

It also continued to not rain – only a total of 1.02″ for August. The grass is crispy again, and the crops require us to run the drip irrigation daily just to keep them alive. I was hoping I was wrong about this being our new normal, but it increasingly seems that I was right. Our sandy soil had us trained in moisture management, fortunately.

We ran the smokers and made our first batch of salsa, and tried to gather some chokecherries (but the drought meant our search was … fruitless.)

In other news, a mysterious tomato pecker is raiding the high tunnel. A chicken is suspected but we don’t know who … hopefully just one, so we can catch it and stop the reign of terror … a live trap baited with pecked tomatoes and a game cam are set. Updates pending. On Friday I was convinced to attend a punk concert in Minneapolis to see some old friends play … and it was quite lovely. An all-out reunion more than merely a show, which made it worthwhile getting less than 4 hours of sleep before the farmer’s market Saturday morning! Not something I’ll be making a habit of, but quite pleased to have made it happen.

Inside Box 11

Bird-Damaged Sweet Corn – Our field was assaulted by avians this week, and they pecked the ends of the second round of sweet corn … but it’s still delicious! Seems like this always happens to our later corn crops … I’m gonna have to invent some kind of awesome scarecrow with the boys next year. Anyway just cut off the damaged tips and use as normal.

Tomatoes – ripe and ready to enjoy! Store on the counter upside down for best results, as the shoulders are more firm. 

Shallots & Onions

Cherry Tomatoes – a medley of various types we grow

Cucumbers – we thought these were done, but there were some lovely survivors for the box.

Zucchini

Eggplants – maybe this is your week to make ratatouille?

assorted sweet Peppers 

Beets – we tried to group them by size, so some of you got a few big oners, others got a load of littles. But everyone got over a pound of whichever type! 

Spaghetti Squash 

Basil

Radish Microgreens – add some zippy to any dish! we love them on tacos.

a Watermelion i- f you hadn’t had one yet

This is the week that the garden started to flex. It does that, on the heels of summer’s passing peak. This is the week that people started to make winter plans. The bracken ferns all browned. I thought about woodpiles. And corn and melons joined the tomato party and here we are.

The first half of the week was one of those deepening drought arcs. Anything not deeply rooter or irrigated became crunchy.

One day, the radar finally showed an oncoming raincloud zooming right for us. We battened hatches and stared at the rumbling western sky as the humidity spiked, the breeze died, then picked up sharply as the rumbling came nearer and those clouds darkened and began to flash.

And then we all let the rain come down on us and I think maybe we were feeling how those dry plants were feeling as that brief , beautiful deluge washed over the Farm.

It was another good week.

Inside Box 10

• Sweet Corn – sooner the sweeter. Please eat one raw, right now, where you are, with your hands and face. As one does.

• No seriously go get one.

• Cherry Tomatoes
• Tomatoes
• Cherry Bomb Peppers <spicy>
• Not Spicy Peppers – either Shisito roasting peppers, or Purple Island bell peppers, or ancho or maybe poblano
• Zucchini
• Carrots – hard fought
• Arugula Microgreens
• Thai Basil
• Cukes
• Mystery Mix Melons – if you don’t get a watermelon today, you will next week.
• Onions
• Shallots
  “The fanciest of cultivated alliums. Leeks are special for sure but they got that wackado top going on… it’s hard to take them so seriously. And if you want to challenge me on this with ramps… I will ask to to reread the qualifier I included in the first sentence.

So yes. Shallots. They cast a spell over your meal. They increase the chance of you opening a bottle of white wine by 80%. You will zest your citrus and include some obscure herb in the dish like chervil. You will feel weirdly compelled to find chervil even though you don’t have a clue what it taste like. You will curse your CSA for NEVER giving to chervil even though you suspect they grow it (they do not). When you finally find it, you will chiffonade it. The shallots will shine in perfect harmony.

Also totally possible that some other member of your household will grab those “weird shaped little onions” and just slap-dash throw them into any old thing. That’s how you get haunted by the ghost of Jacque Pepin. ” – K

I have scratches all over my torso because a skunk discovered that our hens have been laying eggs in various places around the farm.

It’s the skunk’s fault, although not directly. Wasn’t skunk claws that raked my shoulders and chest and back. But I still blame it. Because while it was raiding nests and eating eggs, our cat saw fit to intervene, and got himself sprayed. (Again.) He must have learned a little something from previous encounters, because it was only a glancing blast of stank that got him this time – not enough to leave him gagging and blind, but enough that he was banned from the bed and forced to bathe. He won’t do this on his own, so I had to be his bathing assistant. And that, of course, is why I’m sporting scratches all over.

It’s been a good spring, skunk aside.

The field is looking tidy and well-mulched. The myriad weeds that co-exist with our crops aren’t towering rudely yet. They are a bit slowed by the standard lack of rainfall that we get here – we had barely one inch total in May, and so far June has graced us with less than two inches (they say we should get an inch a week to keep up with the Joneses). It’s the usual story here – our neighborhood is seemingly hydrophobic, magically shedding rain clouds. (We also miss the hail, which is a pleasant silver lining.) Fortunately, growing in sandy soil has trained us well in moisture maintenance over the years, and so adapting to drought conditions is merely a slight extension of our usual procedures. Mulch, mulch, more mulch, compost, and some drip irrigation down each row. A lot of rain might even be a problem, if we had such a thing – sandy soil is prone to nutrients washing down beyond the root zone.

Last week, and this week, we spent many hours with The Boys performing the traditional task of farm kids everywhere: patrolling the potato row and trying to stem the always rising tide of potato beetles, larvae, and eggs. Next week, we will do some more. This continues until the potato plants die back. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it.

Otis and Jasper helped Marcia and Deb take photos during the harvest today.

WHAT’S IN BOX #1

Garlic Scapes – if you don;t get scapes, are you really even in a CSA?
Lettuce Mix
Cilantro – our best year ever for this! If that heat wave wouldn’t have broken, they would have bolted on us, but the cool temps and rain held them for the harvest today.
Sugar Snap Peas
Salad Turnips
Radishes – the only ones we’ll get his year, because timing is tricky and we are imperfect humans. SO enjoy them if you do, and rejoice of you don’t ’cause this is it for the year.
Spring Onions
Bok Choi
Microgreen Mix (Red Cabbage, Broccoli, Sunflowers, Amaranth, Kale, Radish)

Well, it was a mildly chaotic first day but I think we all made it. Hope the veggies are delicious!