There’s more variety in the harvest now as the carrots seeded in the last week of March are ready for digging, along with the beets seeded mid-April. Pictured below is the lovely roots display at we had at the Union Square Farmer’s Market—nice job market team, what a vibrant array of colors! If you haven’t had a golden beet yet, I find them to be citrusy, yet milder and sweeter than red beets. As with all beet varieties, you can cook the greens in addition to the roots; the greens taste similar to chard and spinach, but with a different texture. All of it delicious!
We’re also picking Sugar Anne snap peas and lots of strawberries. All these treasures of early summer and more are available at the farm stand which is now open. In addition, Strawberry Day, complete with strawberry picking, strawberries for purchase, and strawberry-related activities, is this Saturday, June 22. It seems appropriate that volunteer Anne has been picking the majority of the Sugar Annes. She loves picking peas, and to our way of thinking, Sugar Anne refers to no one else. Thank you, Anne!
All this rain has been great for establishing crops and growing greens. We’re hoping for it to stop raining now though so that strawberry quality remains high through Saturday’s Pick-Your-Own event. This past Saturday, the public responded to Kelly’s flash sale social media alert about a last minute additional opportunity to pick berries–thanks Kelly! We opened the patch at 10 and were sold out by 1 (pictured below). This coming weekend we should have far more berries, hope to see you then!
Another consequence of the frequent rains seems to be lower pest pressure, which is a good thing. By this point in the season, we’re usually spraying organically certified pesticides to control leaf hopper on beans, thrips on onions and Colorado potato beetle on potatoes. Rain can help wash thrip eggs off onion leaves, so maybe that’s happening with other pests. We’re also noticing hundreds of dragonflies patrolling the fields, along with lacewings, swallows, bluebirds, killdeer, toads, and frogs. We think of these creatures as other crops teammates doing the work of insect control, and we want to encourage them in any way we can. Yesterday, as we were removing row cover from the field, we heard a chirping coming from one of the hundreds of rock bags we had tossed onto the truck. The sound was so distinctive that it was easy to locate the bag in question and fish out the toad who was calling it home. He looked fine and hopped away, and we assume got right back to work.
The Summer CSA’s first pick up is Wednesday, June 26th. If you haven’t registered already, you can do so online and look forward to carrots, beets, potatoes, greens, fragrant herbs, tomatoes, sweet corn, broccoli, celery, and more up until the beginning of September!
See you in the field,
Your Farmers