What a week it has been.
I had a bit of frustrating time with my two flat tires that I mentioned last week, one on my tractor and one on my rototiller. I called a local tire service within 5 minutes of being cursed with the flats, which was a Friday, and they assured me it would be dealt with Monday.
Nothing Monday. I called Tuesday and it would definitely be Wednesday.
Nothing Wednesday, so I called Thursday and it would definitely be Friday. Well...it wasn't Friday either.
Sometimes I get the feeling that as a woman, my "farm problems" just aren't as serious as a man's in the eyes of some other businesses. I don't know. Maybe I didn't get angry enough, but that isn't really my style.
But you can be guaranteed that I won't be calling on them again. Promising and not delivering is just plain bad business. Doing it repeatedly is worse.
Today was week 15 of my summer CSA and the last week. That is... the last week of the summer session, but if you have signed up for the fall 15 week session, well that begins promptly next week!
I'm not doing quite as many baskets next season so I can take a bit of a breather, and also finally get around to a few things that are requiring my attention.
I hope that is how it turns out anyways.
I am really hoping the frost holds off for a while because there are still so many tender crops in the garden. I've barely even scratched the surface of the hot peppers and there are lots of tomatoes still too.
Last weekend I pulled out tomato plants from half of my biggest hoophouse. It broke my heart, because the plants were still producing. But with that chill so noticeable in the air now, I knew it had to be done. I had to get cracking on getting winter crops in.
So out they came. And in went pak choi, copious quantities of various mustard greens, arugula-which I am most anxious to taste again- and some fancy kales and lettuces.
I did leave the other half of the hoophouse intact. The eggplants, peppers and tomatoes are doing well, and I reasoned that when the frost hits inside the plastic structure as I expect it will within 4 or 5 weeks, then I'll pull them out, and plant at that point.
There's no huge rush on that because there's still so much good food outside to harvest and I expect there will be for quite a time.
There are lots of carrots, beets, kales, jerusalem artichokes, turnips, radishes, kales, collards, leeks and chards. I pulled up the onions yesterday and the potatoes are dug and stored. I've still got tomatillos, ground cherries and cape gooseberries (yum!) to pick, and lots of seeds that I hope will dry so I can collect them. I am concerned about the beans, which are having trouble drying with all the rain we've been getting lately.
Baskets contents today were: Heirloom tomatoes, hot and sweet peppers, eggplants, tomatillos, garlic, onions, kales, sorrel, rosemary, basil, catnip and sage.
Having trouble sleeping? The catnip will make you a fine tea that may help with that. Or perhaps your kitty would prefer it.
My recipe tonight is nothing more than a suggestion.
Lately newbies to the tomatillo thing have been expressing their love of the tomatillo raw. I don't usually eat mine that way, but have discovered that they do make a good ingredient in a Mexican style salad. Try tomatoes, corn, chopped tomatillos, basil, kidney beans and a nice olive oil vinaigrette.
Really quite good!
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