- Lettuce, “New Red Fire”
- Beans
- Gold Beets
- Cucumbers
- Cabbage or Bok Choy
- Carrots
- Cilantro
- Potatoes, Nicola
- Scallions
- Summer Squash
While the summer is still young and we’ll have no shortage of weeds and work ahead of us on the farm this year, we are already nearing the turning point of the summer. All of our beds in the field now have crops in them, except for those that have already served their purpose and are being turned under and planted with cover crops for the winter. I only have a few things left to plant, mostly salad greens and radishes for the fall. Our winter squash and pumpkins are forming nicely, and fall classics like leeks and parsnips are growing well. With August just around the corner, we can look forward to tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant (which are all growing well, and need just a little longer to ripen). I peeked into my first ear of corn yesterday, and it certainly looks promising. The kernels were fully formed, the tassel was drying, and it needed only to develop some yellow to be fully ripe. I’m expecting our first delivery of sweet corn within the next two weeks.
All of that would have changed dramatically if a storm on Saturday the 17th had taken a slightly different course. A tornado touched down just down the road from us in Hollywood Township, while softball-sized hail destroyed buildings and farmland just six miles away, to the east of Watertown. We drove through the area a couple days after the storm and witnessed acres of corn stripped to the stalk, soybeans demolished to nothing, and wooded areas stripped of all their trees. It was a chilling reminder that such freak storms can strike anywhere, obliterating all of our hard work and the crops in the field. While we had a great view of the storm coming in, it swung just to the east of us and left us with only a light rain.
On a lighter note: what about broccoli, you might ask? How many broccoli jokes did I receive this week? None. How many broccoli plants were cheered by the good humor of a kind-hearted joke, putting a smile on their face? None. How many heads of broccoli formed in the fields this week? None. How many for the members this week? None. How much confidence does Farmer Red have that the broccoli will ever form heads? None.
Last Tuesday, Nina and I were privileged to attend a CSA potluck at the Healy’s residence in St. Paul, one of our delivery sites. It was great to meet some of our members there and enjoy some great food, even though I don’t remember growing lemonade, fudge or sprinkles on the farm this year… We encourage all of our delivery sites to follow suit! We promise to attend any member potlucks this summer and even use up our once-a-summer bath before the party.
NOT coming next week: Broccoli. Not that you care, anyway. Probably it will never come. I don’t care. I hope it’s doing fine on its own, really.
Fox & Fawn Farm 