What a difference a week makes. We went from the driest we’ve ever seen the farm to the ground being quite wet. We did manage to get the strawberries planted last week and all the winter cover crop sown before the rains began. That feels good, but there’s still some important projects to finish up before it gets too cold, and now we can’t work the soil because it’s too, too wet, with more rain forecast. As a farmer we just know that the weather is just never exactly what you want. On a more positive note, the pond is almost full again, so there’s no more worries about running out of water with which to irrigate.
We’ve taken all the tomatoes out of our big tunnel. It took the crew all day on Monday to complete the job. We took a lot of green tomatoes off the plants, some of which you got in your boxes this week. FRIED GREEN TOMATOES! Now we’ll get that house ready to plant some over very late season lettuces and greens. Some of those veggies will go to the last markets in December and the rest will sustain us through the winter. I spent most of Monday working on a bed shaper that attaches onto the root-tiller. I had seen another farmer in Maine do this in a YouTube video, I thought I’d give it a try. I had what I thought was a good design all set up on the tiller and tractor. I got our interns gathered around to see it work. About ten feet into the first past it all fell apart and broke. Back to the drawing board…
The boxes we use for the CSA shares are waxed and are not recyclable, but we do reuse them. So PLEASE remember to BRING THEM BACK next week.
Ideas for Cooking
“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” Virginia Woolf
Try some Fried Green Tomatoes…
HATCH CHILE – From the Hatch valley in New Mexico and thought by many to be the best available. I use it in making Mexican food that has a Southwestern flavor. I buy the red powder and it is just wonderful. Their site is – www.NewMexicoChileAndRistra.com
This Week’s Recipes
KALE
Kale is a cabbage relative that originated in the Mediterranean. Until headed cabbages were cultivated, it was the main green food of the poor in Europe. It is still eaten in northern Europe and Iberia. In the last few years its stock has risen to the state of semi-hot in America. Until now it was unknown outside the South.