This week’s share includes:

• Cabbage
• Carrots
• Celery
• Sweet corn – provided by another Longmont farmer; grown without any chemical sprays, so there might be worms
• Cucumbers - green slicers, thin-skinned seedless, and yellow
• Garlic
• Onions - red and Walla Walla
• Peppers - green bell and yellow Hungarian Hot Wax (HOT being the operative word!)
• Shallot
• Summer squash - yellow crookneck and golden zucchini
• Swiss chard
• Tomatoes - Cherokee Purple heirloom and red hybrids (large and small)

With all of our helpers back in school, and Mike’s Dad back home in Indiana, Lisel and I were on our own for today’s harvest.  Well, we had Chris to help, and did he do a good job!

All that hard picking makes a guy hungy.

After lunch, Chris served as our official harvest day photojournalist.  Carrot harvesting from a 3-year old’s perspective:

This week’s share includes the first of the tomatoes, peppers, and corn:

• Basil
• Beans – green and yellow wax mixed
• Cabbage
• Carrots
• Sweet corn – provided by another local farmer; note that it’s conventionally grown
• Celery
• Cucumbers – green slicers and yellow pickles
• Garlic
• Onions – red and Walla Walla
• Peppers – green bell and yellow Hungarian Hot Wax (HOT being the operative word!)
• Shallot
• Summer squash – yellow crookneck and golden zucchini
• Swiss chard
• Tomatoes – Cherokee Purple heirloom

[Back-post from 7/23]

The picture above shows our garlic harvest hanging in the hoophouse to cure.  The garlic journey began 9 months ago, when we planted cloves last October.  During the waning days of Autumn, the cloves put down (hopefully) solid roots that would get it through the cold winter.  As the temperature warmed up in Spring, shoots appeared, and the leaves started growing.  Sometime in July, the tops started to die, and the heads were then ready for harvest.  After harvest, it needs to dry down for a few weeks to increase its storage life.  That’s why it’s currently hanging in the hoophouse.

Thanks to our friends from Stonebridge Farm (who gave us the seed as a gift at the end of last season), we have three varieties: German Extra Hardy, Inchelium Red, and a softneck variety that’s been grown at Stonebridge for a long time.

This year we’ve been, shall we say, entomologically challenged.  Here we see our hope challenged by Mexican Bean Beetles (known among entomologists as MBB).  The larva look like this:

Mexican Bean Beetles are related to lady beetles (Coleoptera), and the adults look very similar.  They differ, though, in that unlike lady beetles, which are carnivores and will eat other insects, MBB are herbivores, and eat only plants.  Usually beans.  And more importantly to us, OUR beans.

The approach we’re considering  for controlling them, should the damage get extensive enough, is to release beneficial wasps that parasitize the larva.  From what we gather, wasps are the most effective control short of spraying pesticide.  We’ll let you know how it goes if we end up releasing any wasps.

At the risk of waxing too philosophical, I’ve always found a freshly-planted field to be full of hope.  You prepare the soil, carefully mark the beds and rows, lovingly plant the seeds, and water it all in, all because of what you expect to reap in a few weeks’ time.

I guess it’s something of an act of faith, too.  You know the seeds are there, you know the sun will shine, but whether or not they grow is ultimately beyond your control.  You just have to trust that they’ll do what they’re meant to do.  And in the meantime, you enjoy, in the case of this field, visions of salad mix, beets, radishes, turnips, carrots, and spinach.

Sorry, we didn’t manage to get a photo of this week’s share.  But here’s what it contains:

This week’s share includes: