This Wednesday is the sixth week of our CSA (an even week).
Farm pick up on Wednesday 11 – 7, Northside on Friday 3 – 7, and Squirrel Hill on Sunday 9 – 1.
Don’t forget that you can place and order and we’ll bring it to the markets for you!
We had a nice Fourth of July Celebration on the fifth! Thanks to my folks, who supplied the “big” fireworks, and to all the others who brought along a nice selection of fireworks too! All the kids enjoyed the sparklers with a minimum of burns!
We’re in the midst of summer here and are busy keeping ahead of the weeds. Mary has taken on the task of weeding the beans – which means we’ll have to pick beans soon! The deer have been really tenacious this year and seem to be ripping our deer fence down as fast as we can mend it. They’ve chomped through the lettuce, taken off the tops of the tomatoes, and are starting to mow down the beans.
Back when we started farming, we used to grow almost 10 acres of veggies with only an electric fence up to keep deer out. In the end, we harvested about one third of what we actually planted and the deer ate the rest. Very disheartening.
The deer fence we have up now has been working relatively well- but I think it’s become brittle from sun exposure and is too easy for the deer to paw a hole into and waltz right through the garden patch. We may need a deer fence overhaul soon.
It’s about time to pull up the garlic. We mulched it with wood chips last fall and the chips have done a pretty good job of suppressing the weeds. We’re starting to give out fresh garlic. You can use it right away – but can also hang it in a cool dark place and it’ll “cure” and keep well into the winter. I hope to give out 2 bulbs of garlic each week. Depending on your level of garlic consumption, you can keep one bulb for storage and eat the other for the week.
We’ve had a nice crop of carrots this summer. We don’t usually get great carrots from the spring planting, as it’s hard to keep ahead of the weeds. Carrots are so slow to germinate and the weeds take off! This spring I seeded the carrots and then covered the bed with row cover. Then we had a dry spell and I thought the carrots were done for. We’ll, I think the row cover kept the moisture in and allowed the seeds to germinate and wha-la! We’ve got carrots (with a couple of weeding sessions by Linda and the crew)!
Consider using those carrot tops for Carrot Top Pesto (a shout out to Colin for reminding me of this recipe!)
