What a great break today is from the heat! We feel like a little rain might be in order, and with any luck the forecasted showers will arrive. The sun and heat has been fantastic the last few weeks bringing in earlier than normal tomatoes, squash, basil and even a few cucumbers.
Animals and Eggs
What a relief to all of the animals on the farm to get a break from the heat. They really appreciate it. The cows are no longer spending all of their time moping in the shade and the sheep are not complaining about their long summer wool. Even the cats on the farm have stopped begging for time inside!
Fruit
Strawberries continue to hang on strong and love the temperatures right now. We will be making pancakes tomorrow with strawberries to celebrate the break from the heat. Blackberries are almost ready with probably 2 weeks to go before harvest. This is always a touchy time of year for the blackberries because if we get too much rain at the wrong time, the entire harvest will be lost. They get mold very, very quickly.
Greens
Salad mix will be ready next week with baby lettuce and baby kale and possibly some baby bok choy.
Herbs
Besides basil, the herbs are starting to flower so we will be without some varieties for a few weeks. However, a few of our oregano plants are in good shape and should yield. The same goes for mint which took a pause and is now back in fashion.
Vegetables
We love the squash variety we chose for this year. The fruits are flavorful, well shaped and stand up well in the cooking pan. The onions we in the share right now are starting to get a little stronger now that they have been drying for a week or so. The hot weather and the dry conditions really put the spice and heat into them. Be cautious while cutting them as the tears come quickly.
We had a nice first harvest of tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and tomatillos today. However, there were only enough for a couple of pints per share. So we put them all together. We’ve included a simple tomato salad recipe that we recommend to celebrate summer. Cucumbers are starting to come in only a few at a time and more are on the way.
The garlic and shallot crop were damaged by the heat this last week. Both became quickly dry as we did not get all of them out of the ground before it began to crust. These alliums are great, but the skins are less durable and thick than we would like. The result is that they will not last as long as normal. So, use your garlic and shallots up sooner than later as they are more perishable that in some years past. We salvaged enough of the garlic to have many more heads on the share but not enough to provide it as many weeks as we had hoped. Carrots are in this week and will make it in the share one more week. We hope to have the next harvest of carrots after next week in the mid fall.
Take care,
Arika and Michael
Braeside Farms
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