POTATO HARVEST PARTY!
nEXT SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3RD, 9AM
Join us for first big harvest party on the new land and our first big harvest of 2022 — the potatoes! There’s nothing like watching a metric ton of potatoes bloop up out of the ground behind the wake of the tractor, getting dirty, and bagging them with friends. It’s an unforgettable experience, especially for the kiddos, and we hope you’ll join us! All abilities and interests welcome. Feel free to bring non-members. We recommend a sunhat, water bottle, and clothes you don’t mind getting dirty. We’ll have light refreshments, music from the boombox, and a mountain of taters.
THIS WEEK’S HARVEST
Baby Mustard Green and Arugula Salad Mix, Rosaine Little Gems, Head Lettuce, Rainbow Chard, Celery, Hakurei Salad Turnips, Romance Carrots, Lemon Cucumbers, Bridger Yellow Onions, Heirloom Tomatoes, Sweet Peppers, Poblano Peppers, Galia Melons, Summer Squash & Zucchini, Lorz Italian Softneck Garlic
U-PICK
Please remember to check the u-pick board for updated weekly limits before going out to pick
Albion Strawberries: The triumphant return! | 2 pints per share this week
Cherry Tomatoes: See week 8’s newsletter for variety descriptions
Frying Peppers: Shishitos & Padrons | See week 4’s newsletter for harvest and preparation tips
Buena Mulata, Habanero, and Jalapeño Hot Peppers
Tomatillos: Located next to the frying peppers
Herbs: Dill, Thyme, Oregano, Marjoram, Tarragon, Onion Chives, Garlic Chives, Vietnamese Coriander, Culinary Lavender, Culinary Sage, French Sorrel, Lemon Verbena, Cilantro, Tulsi, Various Mints, Catnip, Chamomile, Purple Basil, Genovese Basil, Thai Basil
Flowers!
HARVEST NOTES
European Corn Borers on Sweet Corn: Last week we forgot to mention that you will likely find a European Corn Borer Caterpillar in your corn! An unfortunate reality of organically grown corn, this little moth grub, while a little gross, is harmless. Don’t let it deter you from this scrumptious sweet corn! Just cut or wash out the eaten part, feed the little grub to the birds, and enjoy your corn!
Galia Melons: Originally developed by growers in Israel, Galia melons were the first hybrid of intensely perfumed Middle Eastern melons. The Galia melon looks like a cantaloupe on the outside and a honeydew on the inside. Its light green, smooth-textured flesh, and honey sweet.
Strawberries: They’re back. We watered the heck out of them to encourage more berries so they’re a little more watery this week, but it’s good to see them.
Abundant Italian Basil, Dill & Cilantro: We are swimming in great basil right now! There is a beautiful patch of new Italian Basil ready for picking on the West side of the garden and with this summer heat the first succession is looking great too! Also check out the newest planting of dill and cilantro also on the West side of the garden (closest to the cherry tomatoes).
WINTER SISTER FARM CSA SIGN-UPS NOW OPEN!
The hottest tickets in town are now on sale — Winter Sister Farm’s 2023 Winter CSA program is now open for registration! Winter Sister Farm, right next door to us, was started by our dear friends Anna and Sarah Dozor. Their CSA runs runs from December through May and includes 24 weeks of specialty winter veggies, flowers, herbs, and more — all picked up by CSA members, free-choice market style, on their beautiful farm here on Cooper Rd! Sign-up today!
FARMER’S LOG
THE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER
The sun beats down, the hills are bleached gold, and the wind blows hot… the dog days of summer are here.
The term “dog days”, for the late summer, traces back to the ancient Mediterranean, where people connected the night sky return of the brightest star, Canis Majoris (aka Sirius, aka “Orion’s Dog”), to the sultry days of late July-August when, as Virgil said, “the Dog-star cleaves the thirsty ground.” These ancient people associated the dog days with fever, bad luck, and heat.
As Marin naturalist and tracker Richard Vacha brilliantly observes of our own Mediterranean climate in his book The Heart of Tracking, the dog days can be a raucous, frolicking time for wild canines as they feast on the fattened prey and tree fruit of summer and as canine pups leave the den and come into their own. (Perhaps this is the wild origin of the naming of the star?)
But, in Mediterranean climates like ours, the dog days are also a scarce time, a spent time. They are the beginning of a great dry down and the great dormant period of our year.
“For an animal,” Vacha writes, the late summer / early fall “can be as tough to endure as an East Coast winter. Food is scarce, water is scarce, and green vegetation is crowded into riparian corridors, drawing the animals that depend on these resources closer together. The animals who prey upon them have shifted correspondingly. Territorial patterns are all in great flux as the expansive cycle of the summer season slowly winds down.”
On the farm, this shift into the dog days — their abundance and scarcity — has been clear.
Our harvests are more and more heavy with fruit: Melons, tomatoes, cucumbers; we are enjoying our first poblanos and sweet peppers; the wild blackberries are laden. In the garden, our first rounds of flowers and herbs are following the wild grasses, tapping out and throwing seed. Even our Jack-O-Lantern pumpkins are calling it a year.
In our staple field crops, if July was an outward explosion of verdant green growth, the dog days are the beginning of a hunkering down, a drawing nigh, a focused inward stare toward the serious work of setting fruit, forming bulbs and tubers, and setting seed. Our Hopi Blue corn and Calico Popcorn are in silks, with ears swelling. The jubilant winter squash flowers have metamorphosized — green and gold orbs now swell in the shade of their sun battered leaves. The abundant potato foliage is no more as they’ve completed their growing cycle, the leaves have died back, and their secret orbs now lie curing in the black earth waiting for us to harvest them next Saturday!
And as the wildland plants dry out and are scorched to gold, her wild inhabitants turn more and more to the farm — an irrigated green oasis — for moisture and succulent meals. The wild turkeys and their fluffy younglings visit the fields every morning and evening, snipping off hydrating bits of lettuce and broccoli leaves. The deer annihilated a whole patch of Romaine meant for last week’s shares. Gophers take bites out of our drip irrigation lines nightly, seeking the cool water flowing within.
But the sweet relief of the first Fall rains will come soon enough.
Until then, keep cool, move slow, and enjoy the fruitful abundance of the dog days of summer!
See you in the fields,
David & Kayta
“Fox in a Coyote Bush” illustration by Kayta from The Heart of Tracking by Richard Vacha from Mount Vision Press
