Transitioning from spring to summer

Transitioning from spring to summer

Make way for summer!  The longest day of the year is almost here.  The “spring” garden is winding down.  Randy mowed down a bunch of crops that had finished for the season – radishes, turnips, cabbage and kohlrabi, a failed attempt at spring radicchio (we’ll try again in the fall!), mustard, lettuce, arugula.  It will all be back in the fall.  It is time to hustle and get the rest of the carrots and beets out of the ground while they are at peak quality.  Time to harvest onions, too!  The onion crop has never looked better.  I’ll take some of the credit for that for increasing the spacing between plants, getting them weeded, and planted them on beds that have drip irrigation.  But most of the credit goes to the fact that it was just a good year for onions.

A meager potato harvest

I learned something new this year.  I learned all about a new pest: potato leafhoppers.  I would have liked to have learned about them before they took down our crop of French fingerling potatoes.  But you don’t always get what you want.  And it seems we are always learning the hard way.  We harvested all the French fingerlings and got enough to give all our CSA members a pound.  Oh well.  The good news is that the Red Pontiac potatoes are looking at least a bit healthier.  Maybe they are more naturally resistant to the pests.  Hopefully we will still get a decent, if not spectacular, potato harvest from them in a couple of weeks.

Tomato Surprise

Tomatoes are almost ready.  Cooper and I have been stopping to snack on the first sungold cherry tomatoes.  I discovered the first few Juliets are ripening as well.  With any luck we will have enough tomatoes next week to start putting tomatoes in the shares.

Did you buy a Green Zebra tomato plant from us this spring?  I planted a bunch of them in the high tunnel and now that they are ripening I have discovered that the seeds must have been an assortment of heirloom tomatoes!  There are some reddish brown ones, little purple ones, red paste tomatoes, and even a white beefsteak.  But no Green Zebras.  Hope those of you who thought they were getting a green zebra don’t mind a mystery heirloom instead!

Small Shares

• Savoy Cabbage
• Squash or Zucchini
• Carrots
• Beets
• French fingerling potatoes
• Red Onions

Full Shares

• Savoy Cabbage (Saturday gets Red Cabbage)
• Squash or Zucchini
• Carrots
• Cucumber
• Eggplant
• French fingerling potatoes
• Red Onions