foxlinecityfarm

Another busy week in the garden.  We are transitioning to Autumn and many  short season Fall crops went in the ground.  2 rotations of Spinach, lots of colorful radishes, tasty turnips, carrots, beets, chinese cabbage and lettuce transplants.   We pulled all the storage onions and they are drying on the tables in the greenhouse.   Our fresh and storage onion crops are  fantastic.  We changed our planting routine this year and planted in plastic mulch for the first time.  The crops grew almost weed free with plenty of elbow room.

We are digging potatoes and pleased with what we are finding.  Beautiful potatoes and what a bounty!  We conducted a little experiment with the potatoes this year and planted part of the crop in reflective plastic mulch after much reading and research over the winter on the topic.  The potatoes loved it!  The soil temperature stays much cooler under the “tinfoil” surface.

Scott pulling the drip line and reflective plastic mulch off the potato beds as we prepare to dig.

Potatoes coming out of the ground.

The bounty!

We are enjoying the cooler temperatures while we work but I feel we spend hours of our days just staring at the tomatoes and wondering if they will ever ripen!  The plants are loaded with beautiful green tomatoes……. and we wait.  We are harvesting Cherry tomatoes and hopefully the larger slicers and paste tomatoes are not too far behind.

WHAT IS IN YOUR BOX

Fun facts that I keep forgetting to post….Average Weight of the box this week is 17.51 pounds and  and 718.00 pounds of fresh produce went out the door today.

We are halfway through the season with Box 10 this week……AND it is an amazingly JUMBO box with another first time offering that we are pretty excited about.

Blueberries!!- This is the first year we have had a big enough harvest to offer in the boxes.  A half pint for everyone even with Maeve stuffing them in as fast as she could pick them.  There are 3 varieties of high bush blueberries in the mix.  The bushes have been in the ground for 7 years and we are excited to have the harvest for all to enjoy. Scott has them well protected from birds and raccoons…..Delicious.

Beautiful blueberries…..

Maeve and Jennifer picking blueberries in the blueberry “cage”.

Leaf Lettuce and Head Lettuce-We planted the seed for the leaf lettuce many weeks ago anticipating heat and limited head lettuce yield.  Well, little did we know that the season would be so cool and we would grow out biggest heads of lettuce ever this week-gigantic tasty heads called Tropicana and the leaf lettuce is beautiful and ready to be cut.

leaf lettuce triple rinsed and ready to be bagged.

Kohlrabi-This was one of Grandpa Lang’s favorite summer treats.  I remember eating tons of salty kohlrabi from a scratchy pastel tupperware bowl at my grandparent’s house.

Cucumbers-Long skinny Asian and European beauties and a quart of bagged assorted snackers.

Zucchini-Several perfectly sized beauties.  Try making oven fries this week.  A nice quick side to any meal.

Peppers-More of the sweet purple bell called Islander.

Potatoes-Adarondick Red. 3 pounds for everyone…. I love this beautiful variety. Pretty pink flesh.  Wonderful fried and roasted.  Can be mashed and baked too.

Cherry Tomatoes-1/2 pint box of little gems.

Corn!!!!!-We DO NOT grow the corn.  It is conventionally grown by Scott’s relatives in Reedsburg.  We do not have enough space to grow enough corn  to supply the CSA.  When we polled past CSA members if they would like corn if we offered “conventionally”  grown corn in the boxes the response was an enthusiastic “yes”.  We have been offering corn this way for 4 years.  We will have corn next week too…Enjoy.

Onions-A few of the fresh non storage onions. A bumper crop.  Keep in the refrigerator.

Eggplant-The eggplants are really not appreciating the cool days and nights of this season.  The plants are 1/2 the size of last year.  However, they are doing their best and we have an assorted offering this week.  We split up the harvest and some boxes received a full sized Galine bell shaped variety, some boxes received long skinny Asian varieties, and some boxes received a mix of mini Hansel and Fairytale cuties.

BEST GUESS FOR NEXT WEEK.

savoy cabbage, corn , cherry tomatoes, radish, celeriac, cucumbers, zucchini, potatoes, carrot.

Scott taking the empty crates back to the garden after we packed the boxes.