Farm Journal 7/24/22

CSA pick up Week #8 (Even weeks)

July’s Garden Share pick up is this week!

Click here to shop our web-store – our freezers are re-stocked! You can find bacon, sausages, chops, ribs, roasts, etc. You won’t find any ground pork though….

Where to find us?!

The Farm – WEDNESDAY (11 – 7).

Northside – Friday 3 – 7 farmers market in Allegheny Commons.

Mt Lebanon Uptown Market – Saturday 9-12

Squirrel Hill Market – Sunday 9 – 1 at the Beacon/Bartlett Parking Lot

East Liberty Market – Monday 3:30 – 6:30 – at the new Liberty Green Park)

Garlic Harvest is in (almost) and let the Squash begin!

I was a little worried that our garlic bulbs would be scrawny, due to the dry conditions- but so far, so good. It’s one of my favorite crops to grow, as you can basically plant it (in the fall) and forget it until mid-summer. Year’s past, we’d mulch with straw and hay and then fight weeds throughout the summer. Last fall, we loaded up the dump trailer and mulched the garlic with wood chips instead. I’d say it’s 90% more successful that previous years. The wood chips did a fantastic job with keeping down the majority of weeds and holding moisture in the soil. We harvested about 300′ of our 700′ rows. I set aside the biggest bulbs for seed garlic to plant in the fall. If we find any tiny or damaged bulbs, we set those aside for our famous garlic salt.

It feels like it’s taken forever, but our squash patch has finally come into it’s own. We’re harvesting your standard green zucchini, which everyone loves until they don’t. But I want you to keep an eye out in your CSA for the pale green/white, long, lumpy squash. It’s called Rugosa Friulana and it’s my dream squash. Thinly sliced and lightly sauteed in olive oil or butter with some of garlic and salt….mmmmMMmmm! It’s the best! Back when I started farming, there used to be a patty pan variety that we grew call Butter Scallop Squash. It was amazing and met the flavor profile of this Italian heirloom – but it was a F1 hybrid and you can’t successfully save true seeds from hybrids. At the whim of the seed industry, Butterscallp squash is long gone. This Friulana squash is an heirloom, and each year we try to save a few seeds (although they are often cross-bred with the neighboring zucchini plants).

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