This week sure was a roller coaster – it started out with so much promise and a very happy farmer here! A surprise rain storm brought over an inch of desperately needed rain, and that was BEFORE the tropical storm that was supposed to double our previous month’s rainfall. But y’all know how that went – buckets of wind but essentially no water. The little bit that did fall surely evaporated before the sun went down from all the wind. To put into context how much rain we have to make up, instead of 20% of our typical rainfall for the last couple months, we’re now at 25%. And no appreciable rain in the forecast. Bah humbug. I guess I should be happy that we seemed to be the only ones in Grafton who didn’t lose power, but it’s hard to crack a smile when cracks are spreading in the fields.
Despite the cracks in the field and in this farmer’s psyche, the garden is pumping out lots of great food. Tomatoes are starting to come in, we still have some great cut lettuce despite the heat, the carrots are getting monstrous, the next round of beets look absolutely fabulous, and I have a serious onion problem. Can you help? It involves eating loads of delicious red and sweet yellow onions! Not only do you benefit, but so do my poor shishito pepper plants that got blown over in the storm. I had this genius idea of interplanting a third (!) succession of fresh onions between the shishito peppers, not taking into account a tropical storm blowing them over. Now the onions stand in the way of the peppers being trellised back up, so be sure to add a few bunches of onions to your order….for the shishitos!
Another Monday, another heat wave. How many in a row is this? With highs in the 90s again, I’d like to encourage everyone to pick up their veggies early. We’ll have your orders binned up by noon, so bring bags to pack up your veggies (though we have plenty of brown bags if you forget). That said, there will still be a 4-6pm pickup window when I’ll be present – your veggies will be bagged up and kept in the fridge until pickup. Choose your pickup window on checkout (fancy!)
Veggie Ordering and Pickup Procedures: Put your veggie orders in online before midnight Sunday. The website has been a little buggy so if you don’t see a wide variety of items or you see items out of stock, try refreshing your browser. Also confirm on checkout that you have the correct number of each item in your cart. New this year, we’ll have your order binned or bagged up and available for you to pick up after 12 or between 4-6pm on Monday on the farm at 64 Potter Hill Rd in Grafton. Pickups are in the long white garage on the left across from the beat up tan and red barn at the crest of the hill.