Riverbend Farm Newsletter September 19, 2013
Whew, what a day. Looking at the radar this morning it was clear that we were going to get rained on. The question was ‘would we be in front of the severe part of the storm’. We made our preparations and headed out to do our harvest day.
Rain gear was the order of the day. The Crew started bunching radishes and I got set up to dig potatoes. Digging potatoes in the rain is no fun. The soil ends up being looser, but the potatoes are still buried. It rained hard and the wind blew but it was not bad enough to keep us from harvesting radishes We picked up 0.55 inch of rain. The rest of the day was pretty decent.
We have been as busy as we can possibly be. We had a record sales day today, about twice our typical volume in August. Two major differences from August: 1) we are down two people, 2) the days are getting shorter much faster.
One of the reasons that we are so busy is because the Hopkins Schools decides to make all of their tomato sauce for the entire year from local tomatoes. That translates into about seven tons of tomatoes. Since the season got off to a slow start there is about a month to process all those tomatoes. Today they ordered about 1200 pounds of tomatoes.
Of course, this is on top of our usually busy late summer volume. The co=ops and restaurants have been buying more than usual too. If it doesn’t kill us it will be great. We had a pretty mediocre season going into September. It is turning around pretty quickly. Thank you all very much.
We had our first brush with frost on Monday morning. It was 36º at the house at 6:30 am. The dew was frozen on top of the cars. Down in the cold spot in the field the tops of the tomato plants were blackened. The basil had been covered, but some of the leaves were damaged. The next chilly mornings will be Saturday and Sunday. At this point it looks like Saturday will be the coldest. We will see.
We have been getting a little rain. Saturday we got 0.8”, more than we have had in the past six weeks. The fall rains are critical to germinating the cover crop seeds that I depend on for rebuilding the soil. The oats and peas that were planted in August came up today. This is good.
Now is the time to fill up on summer veggies. Winter is just around the corner. One of these days we will have a freeze that kills all the summer season plants. Frost can occur at 38º or below. It will damage the leaves and some of the exposed fruit. A freeze is 32º or colder. The severity depends on how much below 32º it gets and for how long. Below 28º most summer veggies are toast.
Cook. Eat. Can . Freeze. Pickle. Now is the time. Soon it will be cabbages, potatoes, and winter squash. Not that they are bad, it is just that so many flavors are unavailable until next summer.
The tasteless, picked green, ‘tomatoes’ that get sent up here from California or Florida aren’t fit for compost, much less eating. The same with all the out of season produce that appears in the grocery stores. It is bred for production under high input systems. Taste is not a consideration. One jar of home canned tomatoes has more flavor than a case of cardboard winter tomatoes. Savor now.
We are having a farm open house on the first Saturday in October. You’re invited. We might take hay ride, pick some corn. Eat some good local food. Sit around the campfire and tell stories. Put it on your calendar and stop by. It will be a potluck so you can show off your picnic skills.
Greg