Our watermelons have too many fans! At the first signs of coyotes finding and eating our (unripe!) watermelon we got to work protecting them with woven fence. In anticipation of the crows also finding the melon patch we covered the entire thing with netting. We closed it up so tight we might have to cut our way in for the first harvest! Across the street you will also now see an electric deer fence as well. Deer have been nibbling on our cucumber, summer squash and zucchini plants (they went after sweet potatoes vines pretty aggressively a few weeks earlier, but we covered the plants with row cover to keep them out). It was a fencing themed week here at the farm but we made sure to fit in our usual weekly tasks: seeding, transplanting, cultivating weeds, hand weeding, and of course the harvest! This week we are excited to have added tomatoes to the harvest list! We will also be planting our fall broccoli, scallions, and fennel, weedwacking fence lines, as well as weeding fall beets, carrots, and celeriac. With thunderstorms in the forecast we are continuing to spray some of our field tomatoes (no pick-your-own plants will be sprayed) with an organic copper fungicide to prevent late blight so as with all of your produce please wash your tomatoes at home before eating.

This week in the CSA:

Tomatoes! Just the first taste of the field tomatoes for the season.
Fresh garlic - while we cure most of our garlic to improve its storage quality and intensify the garlicky flavor, we are setting aside some of the freshly harvested garlic for everyone to enjoy this week!
Peppers - Green and purple! The two colors taste similar but we don't usually pass up the opportunity to grow purple vegetables! The color does fade when cooked.
Eggplant - Nadia, Beatrice and Japanese varieties. Many of our plants dropped their blossoms during the recent heat wave so quantities are still limited but the plants are healthy so future harvests are promising.
Fresh Onions - Transitional.
Potatoes - Transitional.
Cucumbers- Transitional.
Zucchini - Transitional
Summer Squash - Transitional.
Carrots
Lettuce - We are harvesting mainly our heat tolerant "summer crisp" varieties for the next few weeks.
Kale - Curly or Red Russian

CSA pick-your-own:

Cherry tomatoes! - Sungolds, grape, jasper, cherry bomb, yellow mini and bumblebee are all beginning to ripen. Look low on the plants for the first fruit. As you will see there are many green ones higher up that will be ready soon!
Green and purple snap beans
Herbs - basil, cilantro, sage, and thyme.
Sunflowers

This week in the Farm Store:

We will have most of the veggies listed in the CSA available, as well as corn from Verrill Farm. We're also excited to now carry Double B Honey! Beekeeper Ken Anderson has several hives in the area, but this batch we're getting is all honey produced by the hives on Barrett's Mill Farm! We have eggs from Pete and Jen's and may also have more mushrooms from Fat Moon later this week.

PYO Flower CSA:

The field is now in it's peak! Flowers ready this week include zinnias, snapdragons bachelors button, celosia, statice, scabiosa, verbena, cosmos, strawflower, craspedia, gomphrena, ammi and more. If you are not a PYO Flower CSA member and would like to pick a bouquet, you can purchase a jar for picking in the store!

Seared Summer Squash and Egg Tacos

MARTHA ROSE SHULMAN

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, cut in half lengthwise and sliced across the grain
1 ½ pounds summer squash, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 to 2 serrano chilies, minced
Salt to taste
Freshly ground pepper
8 eggs, beaten
2 to 4 tablespoons chopped cilantro
10 warm corn tortillas

PREPARATION

Heat a heavy skillet (preferably cast-iron) over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil and the onion and cook, stirring, until the onion begins to color, about 3 minutes. Add the zucchini and cook, stirring, until it is lightly colored and tender, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, chili and salt to taste and stir together for about 30 seconds to a minute, until fragrant. Reduce the heat to low.
Beat the eggs and season with salt and pepper. Add to the zucchini mixture along with the cilantro. Cook, stirring, until the eggs are set. Fill the warm tortillas and serve.