Farm & Field Update- September 5th 2018

   We had the pleasure of hosting a work group of cooks from Great Performances late last week. Fourteen of them came and harvested all the ripe specialty hot peppers and one whole row of red field tomatoes. They will freeze them and use them throughout the winter in their kitchen delicacies. They were hard workers, it was a beautiful day and great having them here.

   Hope you had a Happy Labor Day. On the farm it's not a holiday, it still means work. Ok so we only worked half a day, but we were busy, busy. We started harvesting a couple of beds of chard that surprised us by producing a beautiful second cutting. Chard has the most delightful variety of colors, what a way to start what was to become a scorching 90 degree, hot and humid day. The weather forecast is predicting more of these high temperatures and hopefully without torrential rain, which means Bob has the pump running again and the sprinkler going full blast. He’s also been busy spreading cover crop seed. He’s got to get that seed spread now, so it has time to germinate and begin to get those roots down deep in the ground to pull up nutrients, later when the grass dies those channels will help with water flow and provide pathways for next year’s crop roots. Along with improving the soil it will help prevent erosion and can help with weed and pest control.

     This week you’ll be seeing the first of our winter squash, hard to believe but the Delicata squash was ripe and ready to harvest.

     We finished our day harvesting Shishito peppers. These peppers are thin walled & wrinkled, mild when green and slightly sweet when red, great on salads, roasted on the grill or in tempura. The plants are high and filled with fruit so, sitting low on the ground shaded by their leaves to harvest was not such a bad place to be on a hot Labor Day.