We finally have some summer veggies starting to show up in the share—zucchini, cucumbers and eggplants, as well as the extremely late spring kale and swiss chard and some extraordinarily compact green cabbages. It is a welcome relief to see these favorites, though we will be affected by the earlier stress for a while yet. Across the board the vegetable plants are really small, meaning that they either produce very small crops or very few crops, either way our yields are way down from normal.

Unfortunately there will be some limits on the veggies and the occasional choice to make for awhile yet. The good news is that many of the plants, tomatoes, cucumbers and summer squash especially, will continue to grow all season long. By the end of the summer we hope to be up to a more regular yield with plenty to share.

All of these dry, sunny days have allowed us to get in a lot of field work over the last couple of weeks. We’re getting caught up on summer cover crops and hay making, and Saturday night we combined our first wheat harvest. We had a great yield on the wheat, which will feed the pigs and chickens well, and baled up the leftover straw for winter-time bedding.

Farming Survey

Richard Robbins from Plattsburgh State is doing a survey about farming in Essex County. He will be at pick-up next week with hopes that each household in the csa will take a few minutes to fill out the form and turn it back in directly. Please plan a few extra minutes into your schedule to help him out.

In the Farm Shares

In the veggie share: kale, swiss chard, small green cabbages, choice of zucs, cucs and eggplants, carrots, beets, bunching onions, lettuce heads, loose-leaf lettuce, mesclun mix, basil and flowers. Herbs are outside of the csa door to cut—sage, oregano, parsley and thyme.

In the meat share: Fresh beef—rib steaks and kabob cubes. Whole and half broiler chickens in the freezer. All beef cuts will be available next week.

Sara Kurak
Full and By Farm

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