Mother Nature’s Terms

We are so excited to see the patty pan squash plants looking so healthy. There will be nice quantities in the next few boxes! The cucumbers are also starting to produce which is a true sign of summer. The eggplant and tomato plants look good, but they are still small and we are some time away from seeing any of them in the CSA Boxes.

The last wave of tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers will be planted by the end of the weekend. You can see this area of plant starts in our driveway is getting smaller by the week. Up until now we have been both harvesting and planting on a daily basis, along with pulling weeds, of course! Robert says he is growing “roots” in his knees and palms. The grasses are just one of the weeds which flourish during rainy seasons.

The green beans were planted much earlier than usual this year in hopes of getting them to maturity before the rust hit the plants. The earlier photo below shows the beans just starting to grow at the base of the fence. Unfortunately, the rains and subsequent heat damaged the plants. There will be a pitiful amount of green beans this season. However, the garden beets are looking very good! They are larger than in this photo (see the red stems), but still have a ways to go before making an appearance in the CSA Boxes. Where one crop fails, another succeeds! In 2017 we had beans and no beets. Looks as if 2018 will be the exact opposite!

In your CSA Boxes next week look for the first small cabbage, cucumbers, onions, a mix of patty pan squash varieties, green and yellow zucchini (although these are much slower than the patty pans for some reason), perhaps some new potatoes, and the last of the lettuces early in the week. We are officially moving into the summer vegetables!

We feel blessed to have made it thus far without a forced break in veggie box deliveries. The simple fact is Mother Nature’s terms can be cruel. We are grateful for the nourishing food our gardens are providing this harvest season!