Nightshades

Thank goodness for nightshades!  Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and potatoes are all in the nightshade, or Solanaceae, family.  Other, more toxic family members include tobacco and belladonna.  The naturally occurring toxin solanine is why eating green potatoes will give you a stomach ache.  This family of plants originates from South America.   The nightshades are generally heat loving vegetables, with the exception of the potato, which is annoyingly sensitive to both heat and cold.   So at this time of year we rely on the Solanaceae to help fill the CSA shares.  We do have watermelon and cantaloupe and cucumbers on the way, and more squash and zucchini as early as next week.  The planting of the melons and squash was delayed with the excessive wet weather in June, so they are behind schedule, but on their way none the less.

It seems like we have been behind schedule all summer.  All the rain in May and June made it impossible to get things planted on time.  But today we

finished making the beds for fall planting.  It would be a really good time to get a nice soaking rain, but I don’t think it’s in the cards.  So we will have to water all the beds to sprout the weeds.  Then, we smother the weeds with tarps so we have a nice clean, weed free bed for our fall crops.   So maybe it will be a little easier to keep on schedule as we more towards fall.

Small Shares

• Sweet Peppers
• Cherry Tomato
• Slicing tomato
• Okra
• Yellow Onion

Full Shares

• Sweet Peppers
• Juliet Plum Tomato
• Slicing tomato
• Eggplant
• Yellow Onion
• Red Potato