With so late a start to the farm season it seems that summer and fall are showing up together this year. For the first week the tomatoes are ripening up some real fruit. The vines are heavily laden with big tomatoes, in all stages of ripening. The red summer potatoes are bulking up underground and the our first real cabbage harvest (not including the green golf balls early in July) has finally arrived.

It’s strange to announce our first cider pressing during the same week. The wild apple trees all along Leaning Road have put out amazing quantities of fruit this year, all ripe and ready to drop—deliciously crisp, tart apples as well as sweeter varieties. Bring a jar tonight to take home some fresh cider and stay for a bit to help feed the press. The final transplants are in the ground and the fall spinach is up and starting to develop true leaves.

New Draft Horse

We’ll be focusing next week on spreading compost and preparing the field for next year’s vegetables, seeding our fall cover crops and getting ground ready for this year’s wheat harvest.

Just in perfect time, our new draft horse Rosa showed up this morning. James has hitched her up to Lightning and is out discing as I write. Tonight Rosa will go in an adjacent pasture to the other horses, giving them a chance to get to know each other for a few days before figuring out who is top dog. There is money down on both Lightning and Rosa, Abby will no doubt be too busy retiring to place her own bet.

In the Farm Shares

In the veggie share: tomatoes, red cabbage, red fingerling potatoes, green beans, sweet onions, bunching onions, swiss chard, carrots, beets, lettuce heads, lettuce mix, mesclun mix, basil, herbs (including cilantro and dill), cucs, zucs, eggplants, peppers, and okra. U-pick flowers are in the field behind the silo. Bring a jar to take some cider home! There are some nice melons in the field, they are fully grown but have a lot of ripening to do before eating.

In the meat share: Fresh broiler chickens. Beef, whole and half chickens in the freezer.

Sara Kurak 
Full and By Farm