Animals and Eggs
Soon we will begin to document some of the renewable energy training and education projects we have on the farm. Videos and photos will be available on this website. One of the most exciting ones is our new anaerobic digester. Why do we talk about that here in the animals and eggs section? Because we are using spent animal bedding and animal waste to fire the digester. So, not to be gross, but the chickens don’t just make eggs but they make fuel, too. The eggs in the share this week are perfect for making scrambled eggs with kale and onion. This goes great with a few sliced fresh tomatoes.
Fruit
Unfortunately, we have had a less than stellar year for our fruits. We have lost all the apples to codling moth. We will be moving to a better codling moth management tools for the 2010 growing season. The challenge is to grow the apples on a small scale with only a dozen trees and keep the moths away using sustainable methods. We will keep you updated on the efforts. As for other fruit, we also lost most of the blackberries due to rains occurring just before harvest. Finally, we had much lower than anticipated strawberry yields because of poor water management. However, we are not discouraged. Fruits are delicate and we need to become a bit more refined ourselves. So back to work!
Herbs
Herbs have done exceptionally well this year. We will have garlic for another 10 share weeks. Shallots are in the share this week and will be around for another couple of weeks. Basil has rebounded quite nicely. This year, as in the past, we have grown Mammoth variety. With all of the improvements we have had this year in our compost and soil management, we will add a Thai basil variety next year. Finally, although it is getting late in the season for mint, we had a nice mint crop this week.
Greens
Kale looks great for this time of year and we really love it in simple stir fry with onions dishes and with eggs as mentioned above. Kale love aside, we will have lettuce next week. It has finally become cool enough to get good crops of lettuce growing again.
Vegetables
Soon we will be coming to the end of summer vegetables. We anticipate having cucumber, red tomato, tomatillo, and onions for another month or so. Our potatoes have not quite died back fully but will be ready for harvest very soon. Similarly, pumpkin and other winter squash are almost ready as well. We expect to have them ready to be in the share by the middle of October. Finally, although it is late in the season, we will have hot peppers and maybe a few eggplant coming soon. These crops are traditionally difficult for us to grow but we may just squeeze out a few before the cold weather comes back.
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