last week of july share

pat at the washing tub


mark and harold washing the first garlic harvest of the year!




There are plant diseases that try a farmer's commitment to organic agriculture. I can think of two, and hope that those are the only two that i ever know. We had one last season when we got downy mildew on our cucumbers and could do nothing but watch as they died one by one down the row. It was sad, and a loss of income, but we grow a wide array of vegetables and in any one year can afford to lose one without being too adversely affected.

this year the disease de jour on the whole east coast is late blight it affects tomatoes and potatoes. Its a bad one, this is the pathogen that caused the irish potato famine changing the course of irish (and i would say american, too) history!

Late blight has been in the newspapers, its been on the radio, the farmers at market have been abuzz about it for weeks- apparently it was brought in on tomato plants at one of the big box stores and worsened when diseased plants were offered at a discounted rate rather than destroyed. (this, my friends, is why it is recommended to buy plants from a horticulturist, rather than a cashier. a grower would not have allowed a diseased plant to leave their farm, and certainly would not have marked them down to move them, spreading the disease further in the process. This means that if you eat a non-organic tomato this year grown anywhere in the northeast where it has been generally cool and wet- the requisite conditions for the disease- it will probably have been thoroughly sprayed to prevent late blight. It also means that there may not be any organic tomatoes at all as there are currently no organic controls.) As of now, no local farmers that we have talked to have found it in their fields, but last week, a home gardener in Ithaca told me he had it.

This week, our friends Kara and Ryan called, they are in the poconos in their first year of having a CSA, and they have it, as apparently does everyone else in that area.

It is at the moment that you find such a disease in your field that you must decide, how much do i believe in not spraying, because there are chemical sprays that will stop or at least slow, depending on the weather, the spread of downy mildew and late blight, but there are no organic solutions. And to lose tomatoes and potatoes, would be a huge loss. That said, we have been scouting our fields regularly and have no sign of late blight, hooray!

unfortunately it looks like we have downy mildew again this year, so it may be "bye, bye cucumbers". tomorrow we will be ripping out the infected plants, and hoping that we could have caught it in time.

Don't forget the sleep out event on saturday august 15th! The last two years have been tons of fun, hope you can make it to our 3rd annual sleep out event!


Things you may see this week
new potatoes
beans
zucchini, patty pans
cucumbers
celery
lettuce or lettuce mix
radicchio
fresh onions
beans green, yellow, or speckled
kale
chard
scallions
radishes
broccoli
cabbage
beets
cilantro
basil
parsley
cherry tomatoes (first few)
peppers (first few)

Grated Zucchini:
2 T butter, unsalted
1 small clove of garlic, minced
3 medium zucchini, unpeeled grated
Freshly grated nutmeg
Salt and pepper

Melt butter in skillet, add garlic, cook3 minutes.
Toss zucchini in hot garlic butter until tender 2-3 minutes. Season with nutmeg salt and pepper to taste serve immediately.

From Martha Stewart’s quick cook


colorful market stand

hope the week is good.
liz and matthew