C.S.A. Week 5

The garden has reached its peak. There are a few weeks in July that everything looks its best; green, strong, loaded with fruit, and the sunflowers reaching over 7 feet high. Their blooms follow the sun around the field as it rises and sets every day. And then sometime around now as things like carrots, eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes are just coming into their prime, other plants are beginning to decay. Influenced by the shortening of daylight hours, the onion tops are beginning to brown, their process of dying back. We will watch for when the tops have tipped over at the necks and pull them into the Seedhouse to dry for fall storage. The potatoes have passed their flowering stage and are tired from battling leafhoppers and potatoes beetles and now are focusing on sending their energy to the tubers underground. We will begin harvesting them now, but most will wait until October, the cool earth where they have grown is the best holding place for them for now. The first round of summer squash and zucchini plants are yellowing, having produced hundreds of pounds of fruit they are now succumbing to the cucumber beetles and squash bugs that have been nibbling their leaves and roots. Some of the beets are acquiring the fungal disease that thrives in high humidity causing their previously beautiful dark green leaves to spot and shrivel. It is the normal progression of the summer garden and although the perfect visual is fleeting, there are exciting things about this garden shift. With the passing of the peak, we are pulling out beds and transitioning them to fall cover crops which means, that much less space to weed and water. Soon tiny sprouts of oats will come up in newly bare ground, In just a few short weeks they will be a healthy, maintenance-free, sea of lush green. Hot loving crops are producing now, and our time and energy has shifted from planting and weeding to primarily harvesting. It’s always a welcome change that we get to experience in the form of crates loaded with food. The literal fruits of our labor.

Please take 8 items and pick your own basil

• Squash/zucchini mix

• Cucumbers

• Fennel

• Butter lettuce

• Kale

• Red onions

• Green beans

• Cabbage

• Kohlrabi

• Sungold tomatoes

• Beets

• Carrots

• Chard

• Parsley

• Eggplant

• Potatoes

• Beans

Not a formal recipe today, but Kyle and I have been making “Hummus Pizzas” Simply take pita bread or naan or make your own pizza crust. Add hummus, cheese, and summer veggies like tomatoes, basil, peppers, and grated squash carrots, beets. Then bake briefly and enjoy.