Greetings!

Welcome in the sunflowers and the rain—I'll take the rain, thank you very much, and let the sunflowers brighten our days. Looks like we're in for clouds and possible showers all week, which is very good news for our fall seedlings.

In this week's market bag:

• 1 pt. "sungold" cherry tomatoes
• Brandywine heirloom slicing tomatoes
• 1 lb. Green Zebra specialty tomatoes/ Amish paste heirloom tomatoes
• German red strawberry tomatoes
• Costata zucchini/ acorn squash
• 2 yellow squash
• Waltham butternut squash
• Mars grapes
• green pepper
• Serrano hot pepper
• carrots red core chantenay/ oxheart
• Bright Lights swiss chard
• bulb garlic
• rosemary
• chives
• basil
• thyme
• citrus thyme
• tarragon
• flat leaf parsley
• calendula
• blue borage
• 3 sunflowers

Business:

We processed duck this weekend, and they look wonderful. Letting them go 18 weeks rather than 12 made a big difference. They all dressed out at around 2.5 lbs with no pin feathers this time, as they'd all finished getting their adult plumage. They are selling for $7/ lb. and we have only very few left for sale, so let us know asap if you'd like one.

Due to the recent shortfall of eggs, we've decided to increase our laying flock more than originally planned. We'll do this by integrating all of the hens from our breeding stock into the laying flock rather than culling those that didn't meet our breeding criteria. This means that heritage chicken will be limited in availability this year. We will have a very few roosters available at the end of September/ beginning of October for those who wanted to try a heritage bird this year, and we'll have more slow-growing broilers available the week after Thanksgiving.

More changes in September's delivery:

Or actually changing back to no changes for the week of September 3rd: our farm sitting fell through, so Jim will be making the Wednesday NIST delivery as usual.

Monday shares for September 17th will still be picked that morning, bagged, and placed on ice in a large white cooler under the tree at the top of our driveway for pickup.

News:

The rains have been such a blessing, and all the plants are perking up with renewed vigor. The bean plants are growing and flowering again, and I'm hopeful that we'll be able to resume our bean harvest next week. The down sides are more cracking in the tomatoes from the sudden influx of water and the likely increase of diseases that spread with moisture. Wednesday's share of sungolds was hit hardest of all—be sure to eat those right away. And, of course, weed pressure will be on the rise as well. I'll be organizing work shares soon for some much needed help.

This week we've added peppers to our shares—finally! And even these I've picked a bit on the early side because I've been so impatient with them. The green peppers will eventually turn some lovely colors if we leave them on the plants long enough, which simply may not happen. Hopefully the temperatures will continue to cooperate, as the high heat causes blossom drop in peppers, accounting for the late and sparse fruit this hot summer.

Carrots have finally made an appearance in the share bags, and I hope they will have a decent flavor. Being moisture lovers and depending on the water to help develop sweetness, the carrots have been suffering with the drought, and there's a chance they may be on the bitter side. We've had some of both, so I decided to take the chance. The short, fat triangular shaped carrots are an heirloom carrot called "oxheart"; the longer are likely the red core chantenay carrots, also an heirloom variety that are supposed to have a deep red core.

Happenings:

These cool temperatures have given us an early taste of fall, and we're gearing up here at the farm. We have some lovely pumpkins setting and a few decorative gourds, which should make for a festive end to our CSA season. We have both carving and pie pumpkins, so get set for some delicious, nutritious pumpkin pie this fall.

Some of our carving pumpkins ripened early with the heat, and the pigs have been enjoying several of those. We have succession plantings that are setting and ripening fruit that will hopefully be ready just in time for October. The low moisture meant our first round of pumpkins were a bit small; maybe this rain will mean a larger second round.

We'll continue to plant fall seedlings over the next several weeks, trying again to space the harvests with successive plantings of greens, in particular. We have six different varieties of lettuces in the ground, along with kale, spinach, raab, and tatsoi, an Asian green. We also have beets and radishes in the ground and will be starting new carrots, turnips, kohlrabi and some other winter specialties soon for growing in the hoop house.

Pitch In!

We're still collecting sheer curtains for row covers, so if you have any to donate, they're much appreciated

Don't forget, we recycle used pulp egg cartons, so please return them rather than throwing them away. While Maryland law doesn't allow us to reuse egg cartons for our eggs, we can use them for making homemade paper. Thanks to all who've brought theirs in!

Happy Eating!

Danielle at Touch the Earth Farm