YUCK! It is already hot and humid, but the week looks to be getting hotter every day. This week, I had intended to start the Wednesday afternoon farmstand, but in weather that feels like 100+ degrees? Nope. Instead, if there’s something that you’d like this week, please get in touch! As for Saturday, let’s wait and see what the forecast says in a few days.
In the early morning or late evening when the gardens are at their coolest, picking will be the easiest. Give me a request and an idea of when you’d like the items. The cucumbers could have some picked just about daily. The same could be said about beets, chard, and even banana or jalapeno peppers.
There’s still a short waiting list for beans, and sadly, the peas are going to be pulled in the next day or so. They’re just done. That doesn’t mean that peas are done for the year, though! There are 2 flats of pea shoots ready to be transplanted and then the rest of that main pea bed will get seeded. It will probably need twice daily watering, but it’s worth doing it to have peas again in September!
Broccolini has a bigger request for Wednesday morning, and then there will probably be more for the weekend.
The herbs are coming in faster than they can be picked, so if you want some fresh basil, chives, sage, thyme, rosemary, cilantro or Italian parsley, just let me know.
The sunflowers and zinnias are opening quickly, and it would be good to keep them cut before the goldfinches discover them and ruin heads by pecking for seeds. We can do bouquets, a take & make (you get all the components and make it in your vase at home), single sunflower stems, or bundles of sunflower and zinnia stems.
The zucchini and yellow squash have been coming in irregular bouts. Today, there were only male flowers, so that means no fruits to set. It feels like these are going to be a wait, wait, and explosion of crops. There are several small zucchini plants filling out, so let’s hope that they will be in a better productivity mode.
The first bed of onions is starting to fall over, so next week they’ll get pulled and put on the drying rack. Refrigerated ones will come to the farmstand, and will be ready to add to orders. The handful that have been pulled as a test seemed to be almost baseball sized, and it looks like a handful are slightly bigger. The second bed got some compost and a deep watering a few days ago and they’re still going great.
The tomatoes are coming, and most of the plants look great. I did spray a copper soap on them last night in an effort to keep fungal disease at bay. A handful of plants have started showing yellowing of lower leaves and our humidity is expected to stay at “face melting” levels for a while. It’s too hot to do much pruning without causing plant stress, so the organic spray was a better option. As soon as things improve, all of those tomatoes will get pruned, though!
In closing, thank you for reading to the end, placing orders, coming to the farmstand, and generally supporting my little operation! Remember to get your request to me and I’ll do my best to get you all those fresh things.