Wow, how about some rain? Didn't think I'd be having to wish for rain this year. We'll be installing our irrigation system for the first time this year.

This week's expected vegetables
Choose 8 items (large share 10 items):
carrots
broccoli
radishes
pac choi
chinese cabbage
potatoes
peppers
eggplant
cherry tomatoes
sweet onions
tomatoes
basil
green beans
yellow beans
dragon tongue beans
zucchini
summer squash
kale 
chard (maybe)
pea shoots
sunflower shoots
husk cherries
tomatillos
lettuce
lettuce mix
spicy mix
peppers
flour
dry black beans

 recently germinated winter storage radishes (purple and green daikons, and watermelon radishes!)

 swallowtail caterpillars on carrot leaves

red noodle beans almost ready to harvest

a couple of fun and easy recipes!

roasted green beans:
these are so easy an really delicious!  toss beans with oil spread on a baking tray, sprinkle with salt and roast at 350 until tender, about 20 minutes (depending on size of beans).  we make these without pulling the tops off, and then just eat to the stem and leave the stem on the plate, great for a busy day!


zucchini pizzas. 
slice large zucchinis into three or four lasagna noodle length pieces (make them thicker than a noodle, though, about 1/2 inch thick) spray with oil, cook in oven or on grill 5 minutes or until tender.  flip over add tomato sauce, cheese and any other pizza toppings you like!  bake or grill until cheese is melted.  serve like french bread pizza.  easy enough a kid could make, simple and gluten free!


This week's expected vegetables
Choose 8 items (large share 10 items):
carrots
broccoli
radishes
pac choi
chinese cabbage
potatoes
peppers
eggplant
cherry tomatoes
sweet onions
tomatoes
basil
green beans
yellow beans
dragon tongue beans
zucchini
summer squash
kale 
chard (maybe)
pea shoots
sunflower shoots
husk cherries
tomatillos
lettuce
lettuce mix
spicy mix
peppers
flour
dry black beans

have a great week!
liz and matthew

Tomato variety results from the tomato tasting potluck dinner at the farm:
In the sauce tomato category: Cream Sausage and Juliets tied
Slicers - the favorite turned out to be Green Zebra
Among the cherry tomatoes Pink Princess was the winner by far.
note: My favorite slicer (Rose de Berne) and cherry tomato (Sun Gold) did not even come close in the voting.

This week's expected vegetables
Choose 8 items (large share 10 items):
potatoes
peppers
carrots (hopefully for real this week)
eggplant
cherry tomatoes
sweet onions
tomatoes
basil
beets (maybe)
cucumbers (maybe)
green beans
yellow beans
dragon tongue beans
zucchini
summer squash
kale 
chard (maybe)
pea shoots
sunflower shoots
husk cherries
tomatillos
lettuce
lettuce mix
spicy mix
peppers
flour
dry black beans

 We will have salad greens this week after not having any last week

 Thirsty bees

You might not be thinking of what you will be eating this winter yet...but we are. This is our new hoophouse before I tilled the soil yesterday. This week we will be transplanting kale and chard here and salad greens will be planted later in the early fall. Sometime in the next couple months when the weeding and planting and harvesting slows down and before it gets too cold we will put the plastic on the hoophouse. Also, this week we will be planting those beloved watermelon radishes that we hope to have available all winter.

Farm Event 
 Saturday August 15 6:00 we will host a tomato tasting event and potluck on the farm. Tomato varieties: Aunt Ruby's, Green Zebra, Jubilee, Geronimo, Rose de Berne, Great White, Black Krim plus 8 varieties of cherry tomatoes.

This week's expected vegetables
Choose 8 items (large share 10 items):
new potatoes
carrots
eggplant
cherry tomatoes
onions
tomatoes
cabbage
basil
beets
cucumbers
green beans
yellow beans
dragon tongue beans
zucchini
summer squash
kale 
chard (maybe)
pea shoots
sunflower shoots
husk cherries
tomatillos
lettuce
peppers
eggs (count as 2 items)
flour
dry black beans

Tomato Season is upon us!  For those who are wondering why so many of our tomatoes are not red and are oddly shaped, let us introduce you to heirloom tomatoes!  Heirloom plants, like the family heirloom armoire that was handed down from grandma, are seeds from plants that families saved and handed down because they made delicious fruits!  its a radical concept- to keep seeds from really tasty plants, as today's breeding work generally focuses on keeping seeds from plants that all look exactly the same, mature uniformly, and ship well.  Modern plant breeding, in fact doesn't prioritize taste much at all, just getting things to the store looking perfect.  But older gardeners and farmers knew that the taste of a food was a very important characteristic!  Consequently heirloom vegetables are tasty, often have interesting and descriptive names, (such as Aunt Ruby's German Green (one of our favorites), Schimmeig striped hollow, Hill Billy Potato leaf, mortgage lifter, and many great others) and sometimes are downright oddly shaped or colored.  We try to grow a whole rainbow of tomato colors, so that we can slice a tray that covers the whole color spectrum!  A great place to learn more about heirloom tomatoes, seed saving, and the histories of some fascinating seeds is the seed savers exchange.  (www.seedsavers.org)

We want to give you a chance to taste test all of the colors we grow, so we are holding a potluck and tomato tasting event at the farm!  it will be saturday August 15th at 6PM, we will have farm tours, bigger than last time baby goats, slices of tomatoes and chance to spend some time on a lovely vegetable growing farm!  hope you can make it!


Sorry probably no salad greens this week. Due to the wet weather of the last few weeks we were unable to get any salad green planted in a timely manner so we will not have any available for this week. Potato salad anyone? Cabbage salad (cole slaw?) Kale salad! tomato salad? cherry tomato salad?! cucumber salad, shoots salad....time to be creative!

happy eating!

This week's expected vegetables
Choose 8 items (large share 10 items):
new potatoes
carrots
eggplant
cherry tomatoes
onions
tomatoes
cabbage
basil
beets
cucumbers
green beans
yellow beans
dragon tongue beans
zucchini
summer squash
kale 
chard (maybe)
pea shoots
sunflower shoots
eggs (count as 2 items)
flour
dry black beans