STRESS

Plants do not like to be stressed. When they are, the bolt or produce inferior crops. What stresses plants in our gardens? Extreme heat, temperatures that are too cold for the variety, too much rain (we’ve had nearly 30 inches so far this year at the wrong time), too little rain, insect pests, hail, soil conditions–just to name a few things. What stresses your CSA Farmers? All of the above! That’s about it for us though–we do not bother with other stressors. Instead, we try to do the best that we can under the circumstances we are facing, smile at one another, and breathe in the fresh air. We get plenty of exercise already! And the butterflies, wildlife, and natural surroundings are there to remind us to live in the moment while planning for the future.

Speaking of the future, in your next CSA Box you can expect the Triumph of Spring Harvest:  Chinese cabbage, ching chang, Black Summer, Joi Choi, lettuce, onions (but I will start cutting some of the green tops as they are getting unruly), romaine, red kale, and the first broccoli. This first wave is a new variety of broccoli for us. They look rather like broccoli stalks!

We do eliminate some crops each year which explains any discrepancies you may find in our Vegetable Identification Photo Albums on the web site. We are already making our list of what to delete for our next planting season. The weather patterns are changing in our growing area. Our May was much cooler and June has turned hotter quicker; thus, there are crops that simply do not last as long as we would like before bolting or “going to seed” and becoming “undesirable.”

Salad crops will not last forever. The day will come when you actually miss them–Mark My Words! In the meantime, I am enjoying this Tatsoi Quiche with feta, walnuts, and mushrooms and even more greens on the side! Any variety of green can be substituted in almost any recipe by the way. On the horizon are sweet, white, turnips and purple and green kohlrabi. Things are always changing in our gardens.