Sweet Pepper Bonanza!

There are multiple kinds of sweet peppers in the CSA boxes today ~~

• Jimmy Nardello are the ones that look like chili peppers only they are green. They are called frying peppers.
• Mild Jalapenos look like hot jalapenos, but they aren't! They have great flavor for eggs.
• Cubanelle are the light green long peppers.
• New Ace are the standard green peppers.
• Lilac are the beautiful purple peppers.
• Feherezon are the small yellow ones.

Hot peppers are available to help yourself at the Farm, or in ziplock bags in boxes, marked HOT.

We certainly should get a good crop of red peppers this year! We have Ace Red, and medium red bell, Carmen, an elongated type, Lipstick, a smaller pointy pepper, and Red Knight, larger bell-shaped. Last summer was so cool we hardly got any red peppers.

The potatoes are French Fingerlings - a favorite. We don't have as large a crop as last year so this is the only time you will get these. They are a gourmet variety, just need to be steamed or boiled and served simply with olive oil or butter, salt, garlic, pepper.

Check out those boxes today!

Wow, it looks like a taste of summer! We had enough little sweet peppers to give one to everyone! And cucumbers and tomatoes! We checked - we didn't have tomatoes and peppers to give out till Week 10 last summer, Week 8 the summer of 2008, so we are really early this year. It looks like eggplant may be ready next week!

The garlic bulbs are small. They were supposed to be green garlic (like scallions), but because of the heat they bulbed up right away. Even tho it doesn't look like they have skins, even the individual cloves have to be peeled.

See the post below for info on the potatoes.

The onions are a very early variety. The smaller ones can be cooked whole or any of them can be used like any kind of onion.

This is the last big week for peas. There may be a few straggling in next week.

Please let us know if you would like any herbs. A lot are on now and ready for harvest.

Not-Very-Pretty Potatoes Today

We tried out growing potatoes in black plastic, and while they grew well and produced an early crop, they do not look as nice as usual. There's a small amount of these for everyone, and we will start digging the field-grown potatoes in a week or so.

Tomato plants are on the left with their stakes and the first few lines of string. Then there are rows of potatoes, hilled and mulched. We have 3 kinds of fingerlings, russets, red norlands, kennebecs in. You can see a bit of onions, leeks and garlic on the right edge of the photo.

Cows and calves, hanging out in the shade.

Update

Please remember there are no CSA veggies this Thursday, Saturday, or next Monday and Tuesday. We will resume CSA veggies with Thursday shares on July 8th. We will be at Sweetwater Market on Saturday from 9am till 1pm with whatever will not hold till next CSA Day.

In the meantime we are getting hay baled, weeding weeding weeding, planting later summer and fall crops in cells for transplanting in a few weeks, and seeding some things directly in the ground, doing bug patrol and spraying with the biological controls when needed, making compost, stringing up tomato plants, mulching. Etc. etc. etc.

When CSA resumes, we will have yellow and white early onions, potatoes, more peas, and summer squashes ready. We will also have peppers and cucumbers soon. We've picked 4 sweet peppers, and the cucumbers are almost ready to snitch some early ones. We ate fresh-dug Red Norland potatoes a few days ago - so creamy and flavorful! Can't wait to share them with you all.

On Saturday, July 3rd the Sweetwater Local Foods Market celebrates its 5th Birthday (since founding in 2005) with cake and music in celebration of the 100th birthday of our official "Queen of the Market" - Jeanette Keiser of Marne. Jeanette's son Paul is a regular vendor and brings his mom to share in the fun. She still gets a long pretty well and is a joy to be around. We will also begin a month-long "Pasture-Raised Local Meat" sale with samples of Creswick Farms sausages.

For CSA share holders, remember you can stop by the Market and pick up fresh herbs any Saturday. I'd appreciate an email on Friday letting me know what you want so I can be sure to bring enough. And if you let me know ahead of Earthly Kneads deliveries, I can add special order herbs to your box. We have Italian Parsley, Dill, and Basil in quantity now.