Hallelujah, August is over! We are getting ready for the change in the seasons, and fall will no doubt be upon us faster than we know it. This week I set about planting the kale, lettuce, beets, and bok choi that has been not-so-patiently waiting in the greenhouse, overgrown and bug ravaged. After losing about 20% of the broccoli and cabbage (and 50% of the kohlrabi!) to hot weather transplanting, I decided to wait on the other stuff until more of the hot weather was behind us. It is also time for seeding radishes, turnips, and overwintering carrots, along with more arugula and mustard.
The hot weather has kicked the okra into overdrive. Still tender, these larger pods in your shares this week are perfect for grilling. Put two skewers through them so that they don’t spin and fall through the grates and burn. While you are at it, I have heard that grilled watermelon is tasty, and I bet grilled pears would be fantastic. Speaking of things that are great for the grill, the sweet corn has started to tassle. Keep your fingers crossed – this is attempt number three for sweet corn this year and they say the third time is a charm. It has been diligent work keeping the earworms at bay and I sure hope it pays off in a few weeks.
Also on the horizon are fall tomatoes. The plants are just loaded with green fruits and I think we are right on schedule for tomatoes in mid-September. The crowder peas are setting pods, so those should not be too far off, either. I dug one bed of sweet potatoes, and based on that we should have about 40 bushels – that’s 2000 pounds – of sweet potatoes in the ground and ready. Now we just have to figure out how to get them out. Not to mention where we are going to store 40 bushels of sweet potatoes. Other things you can expect to see in your shares this month are salad turnips and hot wasabi mustard. There will be some more peppers and eggplant, and we will try to take it easy on the okra following the okra avalanche of August. Towards the end of the month we should have kale, chard, and French breakfast radishes. I am almost afraid to mention the last planting of cucumbers for fear I will jinx them, so that is all I am saying about that!
New kids on the farm
Baby chicks just arrived via USPSSay hello to our 50 baby Freedom Ranger broiler chickens! These little chicks came in the mail last Thursday. In a few short weeks they will be old enough to move into the chicken tractor and onto pasture. We are trying out a new type of chicken because the selective breeding of the Cornish Cross broiler chickens (that we had raised previously) has distorted their genetics to the point of being feed-eating automatons. While the Cornish Cross grow quickly and produce a plump, meaty bird, they are stupid and sluggish and die at the drop of a hat. Raising them was no fun, and if we are going to work as hard as we work, we had better-as-hell be having fun. We hope these chickens will be more like, well, chickens; livelier, healthier, more active. They don’t grow as quickly, so we will be raising them several weeks longer, but we hope that they will eat enough bugs and seeds and green stuff that our feed cost will even out. The finished product will not look like a grocery store chicken, but more like a miniature turkey. (Actually, it will look like a chicken, though we have collectively forgotten what chicken really looks like)
