CSA List for the first week of July:
Green Beans – Provider
Yellow Beans (French type) – Concador
New Potatoes – Irish Cobbler
Fennel – Perfection
Zucchini – 8 Ball, Sunburst patty pan, Raven, or Sebring
Swiss Chard – Bright Lights
Kale – Blue Ridge (curly) or Red Russian (flat)
Carrots – Mokum
Red Beets – Early Wonder
We took advantage of the long weekend without a Friday farmers market to get away for a bit. We headed up to Heather’s parents to… do some farming! I really wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s a different sort of farming, dairy farming. Every time I get to thinking the produce/CSA farming is tough I like to visit the dairy farm to remind myself just how easy a couple steers, some chickens and an acre of vegetables are to care for. I did get to try my hand at a few new farm duties this weekend. I mowed hay, tedded hay, raked hay, unloaded hay, stacked hay, and then fed hay. We were makin’ hay while the sun was shining as they say! In between all of that we milked 60 cows twice a day at 5am and 5pm. Now I am back in the Lehigh Valley and all rested up for the week ahead. LOL!
I took a walk around the farm tonight. Things grow quick in this wonderful weather we’ve been having. I picked a handful of Sun Gold tomatoes… hopefully next week we will have enough for the CSA. I also dug up a potato plant and was pleasantly surprised at the size and quantity of the tubers attached. The Irish Cobbler potato that will be in the CSA box this week has excellent flavor and is very versatile in it’s ways to use it. However, it does not have a good storability rating. I would recommend eating them up within the week. A couple months later we will have the good storing traditional russet potatoes. We will also have fingerling potatoes ready for harvest very soon.
The one down side on my walk was the fact that the bugs have really gotten after the zucchini. We lost 7 or 8 big healthy plants to a virus that the bugs pass on. We still do have ~25 more plants pumping out the zukes though so hopefully they hang on a good bit longer.
Our first planting red beets is running right into the 2nd planting of beets. This is a good thing if you like beets! And if you like beans you are also in luck… we have lots of them! Eat um’ up, they are good for your heart!
Have a great week,
Greg