More fall crops are making their way to the farm stand this week as we harvest the first collard greens and Swiss chard of the season! These leafy green crops are what we call “cut-and-come-again” since we’re able to remove just the older outer leaves rather than the entire plant each time we make a harvest. That means that we should have them in season over the next several weeks! Collard greens (pictured above) are great for braising, adding to soups, and as a wrap for sandwiches and burgers. Swiss chard (pictured below) has soft-textured leaves and crunchy stems are great for sautéeing and adding to soups and pastas.

Fall planting continued this week as we direct-seeded the section you see in the photo below. This section is planted with quicker-growing crops like arugula, radishes, and Hakurei turnips and something completely new to the farm: rutabaga! Rutabagas are root vegetables that are members of the vast Brassica family along with radishes, turnips, broccoli, and kale. They have a mildly sweet and peppery flavor similar to turnips. We’re excited to grow this new-to-us crop and can’t wait to share them with you!

Remember the Autumn Frost squashes that we planted back in August? We were able to finally harvest a small amount of these beauties! Autumn Frost (pictured below) is a specialty butternut with sweet and earthy tasting flesh. The prolonged drought followed by an excessively wet couple of weeks this summer led to a much smaller harvest than we were anticipating. But, we’re excited to be able to offer you some nonetheless! Due to their limited availability, we will only have Autumn Frost squashes at our Saturday farm stands from 9am-noon. Make sure to pop by then if you’d like to try one!

In Season at the Farm Stand: Collard Greens, Swiss Chard, Arugula, Radishes, Winter Squashes (only available at the Saturday farm stand), Cucumbers, Okra, Eggplants, Sweet Peppers, Roselle Greens, and Zinnia and Marigold Bouquets.

Upcoming Events: Harvest Market on Saturday, November 5th from 9am-noon at the farm

Watermelons are back in season! Our last succession of Sugar Baby watermelons are being harvested and are available at the farm stand. Farmer Alex thinks this round is especially tasty and can’t wait for you to try one. We highly encourage you to get your fill of melons because their season will be coming to a close in the next couple of weeks. We should have watermelons for you over the next two weeks but our Milan and Korean melons will only be available for the next week. Aside from snacking on them raw, you can juice them, make a granita, or enjoy them in a salad with cucumber, feta, and mint.

Remember the winter squashes we planted? They are swiftly growing and we’ve already spotted the first female blossoms! Like all winter squashes, both our butternuts and Autumn Frost squashes produce male and female flowers on the same plant. The female flowers are easy to spot because they have a tiny squash at their base while the male flowers are on a long stem. You can see a female butternut flower above and one from our Autumn Frost squashes below.

Since we won’t be planting any more summer crops, we’re focusing a large part of our attention on preparing the farm for the fall season. This includes tackling the weeds that grew exponentially with the recent rainfall and slowly clearing out spent summer crops. It also includes doing a lot of planting in the greenhouse but we’ll share more about that with you in our update next week. We hope you’re as excited for the fall season as we are!

In Season at the Farm Stand: Spaghetti Squash, Egyptian Spinach, Roselle Greens, Sweet Peppers, Jalapenos, Habanada Peppers, Fresno Peppers, Cayenne Peppers, Okra, Armenian Cucumbers, Zucchini, Watermelons, Korean Melons, Cantaloupe, Long Beans, Italian Eggplant, Asian Eggplant, and Sunflower Bouquets.

After anxiously waiting and watching all summer, we spotted the first luffa fruits on our plants! Luffa, or ridge gourd, is a member of the Cucurbitaceae family along with crops like cucumbers and squashes. When harvested young, it has a mild sweetness with a spongy texture. If it’s allowed to fully mature and dry out on the vine, it becomes fibrous and yields a natural scrubbing sponge (you can see what it looks like in this post). We plan on harvesting our luffas young so that you can experiment with them in your kitchen. If you look at the photo above, you can see what one of the female luffa blossoms looks like before it has opened and been pollinated. Below you can see what a young luffa looks like just before it reaches harvesting size.

We planted a little taste of fall for you last week: winter squashes! We have both butternuts and Autumn Frost squashes growing in the field. We’re particularly excited for the Autumn Frost variety as it is one that we haven’t grown on the farm before. It is a specialty butternut that is said to be as beautiful as it is delicious. It produces squashes with dusty terracotta colored skin and flesh that is sweet and earthy. We can’t wait to share them with you!

Last week we sowed seeds for banana, Scotch bonnet, and ghost peppers in the greenhouse. And, they’ve already germinated as you can see in the photo below! Since fall in our climate is typically mild, we’ll be growing this succession of peppers to supplement your autumnal meals. These peppers will be great for making a big batch of fermented hot sauce that will last you through the colder months. In the meantime, if you’d like to get your pepper fix, you can try any of the sweet or hot pepper varieties that are listed below at the farm stand.

In Season at the Farm Stand: Delicata Squash, Spaghetti Squash, Egyptian Spinach, Roselle Greens, Malabar Spinach, Sweet Peppers, Jalapenos, Habanada Peppers, Fresno Peppers, Cayenne Peppers, Bolivian Peppers, Okra, Armenian Cucumbers, Korean Melons, Cantaloupe, Long Beans, Italian Eggplant, Asian Eggplant, and Basil.

With summer swiftly on its way, planting for the next few months will focus solely on crops that can withstand the heat. That means planting successions of varietals like eggplant, okra, long beans, bitter melon, luffa, and summer greens. Unlike the familiar kale and collard greens, summer greens can tolerate the heat without incurring that bitter taste or immediately bolting. Here are some of the summer greens we’ll be growing this year: roselle, Molokhia (pictured above), Malabar spinach, and amaranth, which you can read more about below!

We’ll be harvesting amaranth leaves this week, the first of our summer greens! We’re growing two different varieties, one with green leaves with tinges of maroon in the center and one with burgundy leaves edged with green. Amaranth is a delicious summer alternative to spinach that cooks up quickly and retains its beautiful colors once cooked. You can use it just as you would spinach or kale, substituting it into your favorite recipes. Here’s a quick and flavorful recipe for an amaranth leaf stir-fry.

In addition to amaranth, we’re harvesting the first of our winter squashes this week! We have two different varieties for you: spaghetti and delicata. Spaghetti squash is oblong and yellow and gets its name from the fact that once its flesh is cooked, it becomes stringy like noodles. The best way to enjoy it is to cut it in half lengthwise, then roast the halves cut-side down until tender. Once cooked you can scrape the flesh out with a fork. Delicata is golden yellow with longitudinal green stripes. Since the skin is thin, there’s no need to peel it before cooking. Simply eat the skin with the flesh! Since both of these are storage squashes, you don’t need to eat them right away. They can be stored in a cool, dark place for up to 2-3 months.

In Season at the Farm Stand: Amaranth Greens, Delicata Squashes, Spaghetti Squashes, Green Beans, Zucchini, Cousa Squash, Cucumbers (pickling & slicers), Tomatoes (slicers & cherries), Carrots, Beets, Scallions, Leeks, Bulb Onions, Collard Greens, Kale, Basil, and Flower Bouquets

We’re harvesting up a storm to make sure we have plenty of delicious veggies for you at the farm stand! This Saturday, May 21st, the farm stand will be set up alongside the Splash Bash, an event hosted by Jordan Ranch’s Lifestyle Team. There will be water activities for kids, 20 local vendors, a food truck, and of course, our farm-fresh veggies and flowers! The Splash Bash takes place during the same hours as our farm stand, 9am-noon. We’d love to see you there!

Harvesting spring crops means more space for summer crops! This week, we planted Sugar Baby watermelons (pictured above) and Asian eggplant. We don’t know about you, but we’re always excited to see watermelons back in the field! They’re definitely one of our favorite summer treats and we can’t wait to share them with you. We hope to begin harvesting the first watermelons about 2 months from now. In the meantime, we’ll make sure to keep you updated on their growth!

Stay tuned for some brand new veggies coming on next week! Both our winter squashes and tomatillos will be ready for harvesting in the next several days. Tomatillos (pictured above) are an interesting crop to harvest because the telltale sign of ripeness is when the exterior husk splits open. Our winter squashes on the other hand are ready for harvesting when the skin has toughened and doesn’t yield when pressed with a fingernail. We’ll be harvesting Delicata (pictured below) and Spaghetti squashes.

In Season at the Farm Stand: Green Beans, Zucchini, Cousa Squash, Yellow Squash, Cucumbers (pickling & slicers), Tomatoes (slicers & cherries), Carrots, Beets, Kohlrabi, Scallions, Leeks, Collard Greens, Kale, Basil, and Flower Bouquets

August 18th, 2021

Fall preparations are underway on the farm! Though it’s still pretty warm out, we’re beginning to plant brassica seeds to get a jumpstart on the next season. We direct-seeded a mix of arugula, Wasabina mustard greens, and mizuna into one of our beds. We are pleasantly surprised at how quickly this mix germinated! If all goes well, we should be harvesting this delicious mix of leafy greens in no time.

The first succession of brassica seeds were planted in the greenhouse as well. This first succession is focused on varieties that are meant to be more heat tolerant. Among the varieties planted were Monty broccoli and Green Glaze collard greens. Monty produces well-domed, bright green heads of broccoli and is purported to have excellent heat tolerance. Green Glaze is a collard variety with smooth, bright green leaves. It is recommended for warm coastal states so we’re hopeful it will do incredibly well in this first planting!

Each crop comes with a list of potential pests and when it comes to summer and winter squashes, squash vine borers are right at the top. Adult squash vine borers are black and orange moths that lay their eggs at the base of susceptible plants, i.e. squash plants. Once the larvae hatch, they bore into the center of the stems which ends up preventing the flow of water to the rest of the plant. Eventually, the plant wilts and dies. Our recent succession of zucchini seems to be the most affected by squash vine borers. They appear to be leaving our JWS butternut squashes alone, most likely due to the fact that Cucurbita moschata (their species) stems are woodier and less hollow. These plants are covered in fruit and are doing very well. You can see a baby butternut in the photo below.

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.