foxlinecityfarm

Happy End of the Summer 2014 Season!

First off-Thank you to all that shared our best season ever!   We are grateful to all of you that provided us with this purposeful rewarding way of life and time home with our young daughter Maeve.  We love our garden and all the work involved in growing the perfect tomato, or cucumber or sweet, sweet melon.  We truely believe in growing organically delicious, healthy, and beautiful produce for our family and love sharing the bounty with others.  Again, heartfelt thanks to you.

Reflecting on the Summer 2014 season we are pleased.  The cooler growing temperatures made work so much easier but also made us wait for a few weeks for the heat loving crops.  Each season has it’s success stories that shine.  Yipee!  Sweet potatoes.  Finally! Big monsters that are beautiful.  We loved!! all those mini snacking cucumbers that we trialed for the first time this year.  Perfect.  We have plans already to grow these beauties again next season.  The spinach was a powerhouse and we are thrilled we finally got this crop down.  Thanks to the hoophouse we were able to provide delicious spinach in several weekly shares all summer long. The hoophouse also kept us in sweet juicy lettuce all season long.  Great variety and quality.   The snacking carrots were amazing, and the cantalope so sweet and bountiful.  The tomatoes were tasty and we were pleased with our variety selection.  A bit disappointed with the volume given the cooler temperatures but feel we all had enough to satisfy.   Beans were wonderful this year and we were happy with the rotation. Oh, and the garlic! Abundant and nice sized heads.   The disappointments were few but still disappointments.  We are still waiting for the Brussels Sprouts to do “something” more than itty bitty buttons.  We LOVE! these sprouts and look forward to this crop all season long.  We are hopeful that they will plump up some before winter share.  Watermelon did not thrive like the cantalope this season and perhaps it was our error where we chose to plant the patch this year.  The popcorn crop experiment almost made it but did not reach maturity before the first frost.  Next year we will have it in early and this is a big goal for 2015. We are glad we had a steady supply of broccoli and cauliflower that was delicious but we are still striving for the BIG huge heads.  These crops will be our winter research reading and next year we should have it down.

Our duties now shift to major garden clean up.  The tomato “graveyard” needs to be all tidied up and all the irrigation throughout the garden pulled and hopefully we can get it tilled before it freezes.  Our hoophouse is packed-we even planted in the walking aisles to ensure a wonderful Winter Share season….pleanty of growing season remain for the cool loving crops.

WINTER STORAGE SHARE PICK UP DATES NOVEMBER 10TH AND DECEMBER 8TH

Scott packing the final shares of the season.

WHAT IS IN YOUR FINAL SHARE WEEK 20

All shares are packed in Fox line tote bags this week.  Keep the bag as an end of season thank you and a happy reminder of the garden all winter long.

536 pounds of Autumn delights in the shares this week.

GRAND TOTAL WEIGHT FOR THE SEASON…….8615 POUNDS OF FOOD FROM THE GARDEN!

SNACK PACK

The spinach harvesters in the hoophouse.

Spinach-A big bag of delicious juicy green leaves.

Garlic-A few heads of Music or German Red.

Storage Onions-Several to carry you into the Fall.

Leeks-The big thick Autumn Leeks that are the best!

Scott digging the sunchokes.

Sunchokes/Jerusalem Artichokes-A favorite late season crop. Those funny knotty looking things…..  The roots have a slight sunflower taste to them.  Best oven roasted or in soups and stews.  Long storage life in a sealed bag in the refrigerator.

Sweet Potatoes-Delicious!  Enjoy our season’s pride and joy!  All cured and ready to eat.  Store at room temperature.

Heading out to cut the parsley.

Parsley-Big bunch of Italian large leaf.

Radish- Our favorite radish to grow.  French Breakfast.  Mild and pretty.

Butternut Squash- Perfect size for roasting or soup.

FULL SHARE

Harvesting the Red Kitten spinach.

Spinach-A jumbo bag of dark green and red kitten spinach.

Arugula-We could not help ourselves…….it is so good and perfect right now.  1 more bunch for you.

Garlic-A few heads of Music or German Red.

Storage Onions-Several to carry you into the Fall.

Shallots-Wonderful mild flavor and a long storage life.

Leeks-The big thick Autumn Leeks that are oh so good.

Sunchokes/Jerusalem Artichokes-A favorite late season crop. Those funny knotty looking things…..  The roots have a slight sunflower taste to them.  Best oven roasted or in soups and stews.  Long storage live in a sealed bag in the refrigerator.

Sweet Potatoes-Delicious!  Enjoy our season’s pride and joy!  All cured and ready to eat.  Store at room temperature.

Parsley-Big bunch of Italian large leaf.

Here is your radish picker this week.

And cleaner.

Maeve said they look like peppermints or candy canes.

Radish- Our favorite radish to grow.  French Breakfast.  Mild and pretty.

Mini Green Cabbage-A small head of our favorite mini variety.

Hubbard Winter Squash- Our #1 favorite for flavor and texture.  A smaller hubbard variety and a bit more manageable.

Carnival Winter Squash-A perfect squash for single serving or stuffing.  Rich sweet flavor.

Trying to find a few brussels spouts ready to pick.

The bucket is slowly filling up as I make my way down the long rows.

Brussels Sprouts OR Pepper Mix-We were able to harvest enough brussels sprouts to cover 1/2 the full shares.  Bag of brussels sprouts OR the final pepper harvest mix.