Tomatoes from Full and By Farm (photo by virtualdavis)
I ran outside in the pre-dawn darkness yesterday to check the rain gauge. I was greeted with an incredibly gorgeous three inches. Rain gauges aren’t particularly tricky to decipher, they are nothing more than a tall, skinny measuring cup on a stick, but I was so disbelieving that I proceeded to look all over the barnyard for buckets and vessels left out overnight that could back up my finding. It is a feeling strangely reminiscent of waking on a dark February morning to hear the radio announce a school snow day—giddy excitement and slight worry that I heard wrong. The ground now is thoroughly soaked for the first time in many, many months and both springs are up to their tops!
All of the rain is just in time to help us with fall cover-cropping and reseeding the pasture where work was done on our fence and water line. The oats are up—a shiny, vibrant green—on our back fields, and the field peas are just starting to pop.
Hot peppers at Full and By Farm (photo by virtualdavis)
In the veggie share: Cauliflower, kale, eggplant, hot and sweet peppers, pole beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, melons, carrots, beets, chard, lettuce, mesclun mix, cabbage, garlic, bunching onions, basil, cilantro and dill. U-pick flowers and sungolds are in the field. Sadly, the last of the delectable fingerling potatoes have been eaten (I will plant more next year), we will be digging the big crop of potatoes in a couple of weeks and they will be back in the share. Fall broccoli will be coming soon, and winter squash is not far off.
In the meat share: pork, beef and chicken. Beef and brand new chicken bouillon, chicken organs and leaf lard are all in the freezer. We’re aiming for the third week of September to butcher the first fall pigs. There are still hamsteaks and pork chops to finish up. Hamsteaks are uncured, thinly sliced cuts off of the ham. They are great tenderized, marinated and thrown on the grill for fajitas. They can also be breaded and pan fried to make chicken-fried steak.
Sara Kurak is one of the owners and operators of Full and By Farm in Essex, NY. She shares updates from the farm with her CSA members and also contributes those letters to the Essex on Lake Champlain Blog to share the news with a wider audience. Learn about farm life week-to-week through her reports!
Leave a Reply