Month: August 2018

Fall is in the air. A couple of cool nights reminded us of what a wonderful season fall is! School is starting. We are noticing the leaves on various trees starting to turn yellow. My Autumn Joy Sedum is turning slightly pink which is always a sign of fall. Will fall be early this year?

In the boxes this week expect potatoes, spaghetti squash (pictured below), tomatoes, green peppers (some starting to turn colors), a few patty pan squash and zucchini. Possibly there will be a cucumber and a few eggplant. This first wave of eggplant is not producing well, but perhaps the next will be better. We are also seeing some beautiful acorn squash. If they are not in the boxes this week, they will be soon. Season change!

We started calling these individual-sized spaghetti squash “hurricane squash” the year we had two hurricanes back to back. In those days we were still supplying vegetables to some restaurants downtown. That week they all closed their doors (and cancelled orders) because there was no electricity. CSA Members, however, still arrived for their boxes and were quite happy to have something which they could cook on the grill and eat from the shell–no electricity or dishes required. And now you know why we switched all of our produce marketing to CSA Members!

For tips on preparing the spaghetti squash go to the Recipes “W” for Winter Squash and scroll towards the bottom of the page. They are great served with sauteed peppers and summer squash! Or just use a quality spaghetti sauce.

One final note:  The Farmer says the winter squash were unable to properly harden this season due to the weather patterns. So don’t try to keep them sitting around for any length of time. FYI, they can be cooked and the pulp frozen for later use. It will taste just like the day you baked it. And if you use vacumn seal bags for storage (after freezing first), the “spaghetti” will taste great for years! We know this from experience!

There has been a hodge-podge of mixed veggies in the CSA Boxes recently. Some members received lettuce and escarole which we discovered growing in the weeds! Robert calls this year a Survivalist Garden. The beets are pretty much gone at this point. They never got very large, but one can do a lot with two or three pretty little beets!

We do not see many eggplant on the first wave, the boxes will have them whenever possible. We do have hopes for the second and third waves of eggplant. The peppers are doing better in some areas of the garden than in others. We trust they will increase in September. We are starting to find a very few ripening tomatoes. Don’t expect many in the beginning! The plants are all staked up and looking good. A great deal of effort has been put into the tomatoes. Fingers crossed! We discovered these growing in the weeds!

They are some of the largest melons we have ever grown! The excessive rainfalls can be thanked for this! We trust the sunshine has been sufficient to make them sweet. Use your own judgement as to when to eat them. The melons were weeded clean at one point and then Nature took over and we thought they were lost. The beets on the other hand were weeded many times and you know how they turned out. An interesting year to say the least, but we’re still standing and have not felt the need to close the CSA down! Thank you one and all for hanging in there with your CSA Farmers!

Weeds have been getting a bad rap, so I want to post this photo of our “backyard.” Obviously, there has been no time to use the weed eater. The area is overgrown, but look at the beautiful, purple flowers on these weeds. The butterflies love them!

On a housekeeping note:  We began the season with three (3) labeled boxes for each CSA Member. Presently, I have one (1) box on the shelf. I know some members do not even take the box from the pickup site. However, if you do and you are “hording” CSA Boxes, please return them! And if you have tossed them out, please stop by Ingles and locate clean boxes to replace them. It has become necessary for us to go into the “unlabeled box” part of the harvest season going forward. Thank you in advance for the boxes!

If one discounts the 19 inches of rain we got in the last two weeks of May and the nearly four inches we got last weekend, the harvest season has been great! In other words, 2018 has been a difficult year for WNC Farmers. Then again, farmers are always complaining about the weather. It goes with the territory when one works 100% in Mother Nature!

The last week in August I moved around the CSA Box deliveries so that I was able to make a trip with our grandson, son, and daughter-in-law to visit my parents at my “family farm of origin.” Robert stayed behind to harvest, weed, and monitor the gardens. He preferred this to a 1200 mile road trip with a five-year old! It was an EPIC TRIP with most all of the family able to be present. Still, there is nothing like Home Sweet Home.

It takes a couple of weeks to see what an excessive rain will do to the plants. Some are starting to die off due to downy mildew, but we trust enough will survive to keep us in business! The cantaloupe and honey dew melons are getting larger, but really need some sunshine if they are to ripen to the desired sweetness. When you find them in your CSA Box, use your own judgement as to when they are ready to eat–thump them, sniff them, press your thumb into the rind–whatever is your method of choice to determine  ripeness. Here on the farm we have another tried and true test. We call it the VARMINT TASTE TEST–when the varmints start tasting, it is close to harvest time!

CSA Boxes will continue to have potatoes (red this week), a few garden beets, small cabbages (the size “stressed plants” produce), some zucchini, patty pan squash, and whatever cucumbers are available (these plants were hard hit with the latest rains so I am using the ugly cukes, too).  We are taking a few green peppers and see an eggplant ready to harvest here and there, so there will be changes in the August Menu. And then surprises along the way are also a possibility!

I just had to snap a photo of the ONE gladiola flower which the rabbits DID NOT eat.

I shall put this gladiola photo in the album with the ONE strawberry the chipmunks DID NOT eat.

Wildlife critters. . . gotta love ’em!