Saturday, September 28, 2013

Tomatoes - who's who?


Time for figuring out which tomatoes are which in those CSA boxes. We are trying out a variety of cherry tomatoes this year as we are looking into figuring out which varieties to continue with for next year and if we grow them next year, we will start to save seed from the best plants. We ended up having to purchase our cherry tomato plants because the seedlings we were hoping to grow did not happen for us. For some reason the seed we used just never germinated. By mid May we had to do something if we wanted cherry tomatoes at all. So, we did the only thing we could do which was buy some plants...

We set up our cherry tomato beds so that they went from Red to red to small red to brown to orange to Yellow to yellow. A nice rainbow effect!

Listed below are some varying opinions of flavor:

Alan Chadwick cherry
size: big!
flavor: sweet and meaty or savory salty
grow again: yes!



Peacevine

size: small to very small
flavor: sweet and juicy or juicier than Alan Chadwick
grow again: maybe
Brown cherry

size: medium
flavor: tart
grow again: maybe

Sungold

size: small
flavor: very sweet or bright and sweet
grow again: yes!
Chello
size: medium big
flavor: tart
grow again: maybe
yellow Reisentraub
size: very small
flavor: sweet
grow again: yes!

Now here's some pictures of the other tomatoes we are growing. We have our slicers and our pastes.

Slicer tomatoes:
Nyagous

size: medium
flavor: juicy and sweet
grow again: no
Nyagous
Moonglow
size: medium to large
flavor: firm flesh for slicing
grow again: maybe

Paste tomatoes:

San Marzano

size: medium
flavor: very firm flesh not super sweet
grow again: yes

Principe Borghese

size: small
flavor: mealy but sweet
grow again: yes!


The paste tomatoes have already gone through two trials of sauce making. So far we thing they make great sauce both on their own and mixed together. We threw them into the pot whole without cutting at all, just removed the stems. While they do have thick skins, we were able to sieve them out with a bit of work and by using the only colander type kitchen gadget we had. We got about 6-7 quart sized jars each time from about  more or less 28lbs of tomatoes.




Still got plenty of paste tomatoes hanging. More saucing is in our future for sure!

Monday, September 2, 2013

Summer at the Farm

Ahhh... summer. Summer took a long time to make its presence known this year. We were patiently waiting for all of our summer veggies to spring into action for the CSA. We can officially say that summer is here by September. Not ideal when you want to provide your CSA members with lots of summer fruits and veggies during June, July, and August, but that's just how it is in our area and in our little microclimate of a valley.

The months of July and August had us busy with weeding, and weeding, compost pile making, preparing to sow and plant some beds, and watching patiently as our fruits and veggies ripened. Each day feels like a hundred years, as you stare at the same tomato day after day waiting for it to be big and red and juicy (or small and yellow and sweet). But, by late August it's all worth it when you've got more tomatoes and cucumbers and melons and squash and peppers than you know what to do with!

In July:



We began to plant into our keyhole block.  We had made the decision that this area would be a perennial herb area, so we have lots of holy basil (aka tulsi), and then a few plants of sage, roselle, thyme, lemongrass, lovage, dill, summer savory, and sculpit. And some things are popping up that we had planted last year like a couple of shiso plants. Over time we'll fill in the square area surrounding the keyhole with flowers and herbs.


 We planted a bed of different types of Italian varieties of chicory. There's puntarelle, grumolo, and frastagliata. No idea what the names really mean, but we are looking forward to trying some new things. We love the taste of bitter chicory greens, so hopefully these are delicious.


From the northerly view, the garden is lush with growth and many things are in full bloom and their fruits are beginning to develop.


By July 18th, we had our first cherry tomato of the season. The weather had been so cool that we didn't really get our first crop of tomatoes until August 2nd, and even then it was only enough for 4 tomatoes for each member box! Our tomatoes didn't really take off until August 17th.


But, finally by July we were able to provide strawberries from the farm itself. In the beginning, we were buying them from another local farmer to put in the boxes. And now we've had plenty of strawberries each week. And some are huge!


In August:

It always surprises me how much growth can occur in one month. I take pictures nearly every time I am out at the garden as it becomes somewhat of a photo documentation of how things were on a particular day, how long it took for something to germinate, how long before they flower, how long before they fruit, how long it takes for a fruit to get to a certain size, how long it took us from the planting date to the harvest date. 


By August 3rd the chicories looked like this


And then by August 23rd they looked like this.

We had some friends come and visit and give us a hand in the garden removing all of our broccoli, cabbage, and kale plants that had seen better days or were done with their veggie providing stage. We had to chop down all the plants, then build a huge compost pile layered with the green materials and then with brown materials we had stockpiled around the garden. The pile ended up being up to my neck.







By late August the pile cooked down to this size. Compost it will surely be by the time we get to using it for the beds.

It's been wonderful to watch the growth of each of our different winter squash varieties. We should have a lot of each, plenty for our members and plenty to last us through the winter.

tromboncino
spaghetti
jarrahdale
tromboncino
butternut
jack o' lantern
spaghetti
jarrahdale
butternut
tromboncino
jack o' lantern
jack o' lantern

And the peppers are ripening.

jimmy nardello
huatusco
huatusco
And we've got tomatoes too!

anaheim peppers and nyagous with a grasshopper and cherry tomatoes

alan chadwick, peacevine, brown cherry, sungold, chello, yellow reisentraub and nyagous

We'll leave you with a September 2nd sunflower shot. Remember those sunflowers sown in June? We just got our first sunflower heads blooming! Happy Summer!


Soon a post on some of our other big harvest events: onions, potatoes, and beans! Oh my!