Zucchini is officially back in season! Since zucchini and most summer squashes are fairly quick growers, they are often among the first spring vegetables to make their way to the Farm Stand. We are excited to offer you both a green and yellow zucchini variety. They’re both tender with a nutty and mildly sweet flavor and can be eaten raw or cooked. Farmer Anne loves to pop them in the air fryer at 400 degrees for about 10-15 minutes for an easy side dish.

We spotted the first tiny fruits on our cucumber vines in the high tunnel this week! Did you know that cucumbers are in the Cucurbit family along with other crops like zucchini, butternuts, and summer squashes? This family thrives in warmer weather and is typically killed by frosts which is why you’ll see these crops in season during spring and summer. In order to make sure we have a steady supply of cucumbers for you throughout both seasons, we just planted another 100 feet of cucumber plants in the field last week! We hope you’re just as excited as we are for cucumbers to make their way back into season.

While a large part of what we do is to grow and harvest crops for our community, planting cover crops is an integral part in managing the health of our soil. Cover crops allow us to give sections of our farm a break from production while simultaneously improving the health and structure of the soil. We just planted one of the back sections with a cowpea cover crop for the season. As the cowpeas grow (above), they will fix beneficial nitrogen to the soil, reduce soil erosion, crowd out weeds, and eventually when they are mowed down, add organic matter to the soil.

In Season at the Farm Stand: Romaine, Red Romaine, Zucchini, Swiss Chard, Fennel, Beets, Carrots, Curly Kale, Dino Kale, Scallions, and Salad Mix.

Coming Soon: Tomatoes, Cucumbers, and Peppers

Our greenhouse received a makeover just in time for fall! Over the past couple of weeks, we replaced all of the original panels with greenhouse film. Over time, the extreme heat of this summer warped some of the panels making it harder for them to withstand the wind while also disrupting the seal. The new film will allow us to control the environment inside better and will hopefully lead to improved germination.

In order to have space for all of the fall crops that are filling the greenhouse, we’ll be mowing down our cowpea cover crop. Cover crops in the legume family like cowpeas have the ability to fix beneficial nitrogen to the soil as they grow. You can see the evidence of this in the photo below! The nodules on the cowpea roots that fix nitrogen are in the center of the frame. Once the cowpeas are mowed down, we’ll tarp them so that they break down and are incorporated into the soil as organic matter. At that point, this section of our field will be ready for our second succession of fall planting!

You might have noticed that we’re a little lean on offerings at the moment as we transition from late summer into fall. Despite having a smaller variety of items to cook with in our kitchens, we’ve still been whipping up some incredibly delicious dishes. Farmer Alex recently made a lasagna with thin slices of eggplant and Egyptian spinach that was really delicious. And, one of our volunteers, Anna, has been making batches of fermented pickles with our cucumbers. We’ve also been making a few small zinnia bouquets each week in case you’d like to add some farm beauty to your home! You can find the full list of what we have available below.

In Season at the Farm Stand: Okra, Asian Eggplants, Italian Eggplants, Cucumbers, Sweet Peppers, Roselle Greens, Egyptian Spinach, and Zinnia Bouquets.

August 25th, 2021

We have an abundance of basil on the farm at the moment from lettuce leaf to lemon to Thai and Italian varieties. We’ll be offering larger “pesto-sized” bags of fresh basil at the farm stand so that you can enjoy this delicious culinary herb. But, if pesto isn’t your thing, you can always dry the basil for long term storage to use in your favorite recipes! Or, you can blend it with other dried herbs like mint for a delicious herbal tea blend. Here’s an article on a few different ways you can dry your herbs at home.

After fixing plenty of beneficial nitrogen to the soil, our cover crop of cowpeas in the high tunnel has been mown down. We’re leaving the plant matter in place so that it can double as “green manure” and a weed suppressant. This will help in the bed renovation process before this area can be planted with melons. We made sure to save plenty of seed from these cowpeas for sowing next year!

Moving over to our most recent succession of cowpeas outside of the high tunnel, they’re just beginning to flower! We have Lady Southern, Queen Anne, and Black Crowder cowpea varieties growing. We’ll be using this succession as both a food crop and cover crop. Our plan is to harvest the pods (and peas) fresh rather than dried. We’ll also be able to harvest the young greens of our cowpeas as a late summer/early fall leafy green option.

June 2nd, 2021

We harvested the first of our Wonder Bell peppers last week, a standard heirloom bell pepper. We’ve been harvesting these peppers green but they can also be left on the plant to eventually mature to a red color. Wonder Bells are perfect peppers for stuffing but they can also be roasted, grilled, sautéed, or enjoyed raw with your favorite dip. In addition to the Wonder Bells we’re just starting to harvest small amounts of our Turkish Biberiye peppers. These peppers are perfect for pickling and based on our taste testing have a heat similar to a jalapeño.

Winter squash might be the last thing on your mind in June but ours are coming right along! The term “winter squash” can be misleading as we often associate these vegetables with cooler weather. Just like summer squashes, winter squashes are grown during the warmer months. The 898 squash we’re growing from Row 7 Seeds (pictured below) is nearing the first harvest. It’s a small statured butternut that has been bred to pack concentrated sweetness and flavor into a single-serving squash.

Remember the cowpeas we planted back in March in the high tunnel? They’re not only thriving, they’re just beginning to flower! This variety is called “Red Ripper” and it produces 10-inch pods that begin green and turn to a purplish hue as they mature. Cowpeas can be shelled and eaten fresh or allowed to dry out on the vine before being harvested. We will most likely be harvesting and shelling our cowpeas fresh because we think they have a superior flavor in this stage. Fresh cowpeas can be cooked just as you would fresh black-eyed-peas.

March 24th, 2021

We direct-seeded cowpeas in the high tunnel this week and we’re pretty excited because these are seeds that were collected and saved from our crop last year! Our hope is that we can start to do this with more of our crops in the future. These cowpeas are a variety called “Red Ripper” and they can be enjoyed fresh or dried. Cowpeas like the heat of summer so we opted to plant them in the warmth of the high tunnel to get a head start. The awesome thing about cowpeas is that they are an edible cover crop. Cover crops work to manage soil erosion, improve soil texture, reduce weeds, and in the case of cowpeas, fix beneficial nitrogen back to the soil.

In addition to cowpeas, we planted Hopi Turquoise corn. We direct-seeded four rows with this heirloom variety as well as a couple of trays in the greenhouse. Heirloom varieties can often have spotty germination rates so we’re hoping to be able to use the seeds started in the greenhouse to fill in any gaps in our rows as needed. Hopi Turquoise corn gets its name from the Hopi, an indigenous tribe of the American Southwest. This variety has adapted to the harsh climate of the Southwest over many generations making it more drought tolerant and robust than traditional corn.

Aside from planting we’ve been doing a lot of spring cleaning on the farm which involves weed control. Weeds love the spring weather as much as we do so as we’ve transitioned from winter to spring, we’ve seen a sharp increase in weed growth. The key with depleting the weed seed bank is to remove weeds before they have a chance to go to seed. Using either hand tools or our trusty scuffle hoe, we’re aiming to get the weeds under control by the end of this month so that summer crop planting goes as seamlessly as possible.

If you’re out and about and want to support restaurants that are using our produce, we delivered iceberg lettuce to Chef Justin Yu at Better Luck Tomorrow and mixed greens to Squable.