With the cold weather (hopefully!) behind us, the summer fruiting crops are starting to grow finally. Cucumbers and peppers in the greenhouses look nice and those will likely be the first of the summer fruits in our veggie boxes in a few weeks. Initially they may only be in the choice boxes in small quantities, because there is usually just a small percentage ready at the start of a harvest. Other outdoor grown fruiting crops (that’s most of ‘em) are not near harvesting yet (such as tomatoes, melons, eggplant). Until they are, we are looking to our greens and our roots to put into the boxes each week. Upcoming greens include kale and cabbage and more lettuce, and upcoming roots include more scallions along with onions, carrots, garlic and leeks. We will probably have some decent broccoli in a couple of weeks, and the snap pea plants are loaded and likely to offer us enough to go around to everyone a couple of times if not more. I’m hoping for new potatoes towards the end of July, or as soon as they are an edible size! We have a lot of nice looking potato plants in the field, and several nice sweet corn plantings too. But they will just barely be “knee high by the fourth of July.”
We are in one of our busiest times of the season right now. Harvesting is taking some time now, and planting season is still in full swing (lots of fall crops like cauliflower, brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, more carrots, etc still need to get in the ground), AND the weeds are growing growing growing. I spend a lot of time cultivating when I am not planting or harvesting or caring for the greenhouse plants or doing the office work or helping with delivery or getting things ready for pizza nights to start! The warm weather and long days make it easy to get things done, and we are making the most of them here at the farm. There still isn’t a lot to show for the last 18 weeks of work we’ve put into this season so far, but the harvests will start to include more variety soon enough. It’s the last 18 weeks of work that bring out the best in a veggie farm’s season!