2010 Fall Share, Week Two

October 9, 2010 newsletter

This week's farm harvest:
Sweet Potatoes
Butternut Squash
Sweet Peppers - Red & Yellow
Eggplant
Tomatoes
Hot Peppers
Boc Choi
Salad Turnips (& Greens!)
Arugula
Okra
Onions

This week's farm news:

Well, the first frosts of the season danced through our gardens and pastures two mornings this week. The low temperature we saw on our front porch was 34 degrees, so that means the open fields were a few degrees lower than that... Even though it was not a killing frost, the summer crops definitely got the message that their time of glory is ending. The basket this week will very likely see the final tomato harvest. Unless we get more frosts this week, which we are not supposed to, we should be able to get at least one more picking of peppers and eggplant. Now we're really moving back into the cooler season of greens, and this is fine by me!!

This week the crew busted out this year's garlic planting. We had to first "pop" all the bulbs we had the saved for seed into their cloves for planting. It was about 1,000 bulbs altogether. On chilly mornings we would find a nice warm sunny spot to sit and do the popping. Aside from getting sore thumbs from prying open all that garlic, this was very enjoyable work. Then the crew really went for it and pushed all those cloves into the ground in a matter of hours and successfully planted about 1/4 acre of garden space. This should result in about 6,000 bulbs next June come harvest time. Aside from the garlic, the only planting project remaining for the year is the high tunnel!