Week #7 Saturday, Aug. 2 – Tuesday, Aug. 5 Downloadable Word .doc for printing

In your bag
Lettuce (adolescent Romaine)
Cabbage
Onions
Carrots, Beets
Peppers
Cucumbers
Zucchini & Summer squash
Green Beans
Fresh Garlic (store fresh garlic in refrigerator)
Tomatoes (any or all: sungold cherry, early girl, heirloom)
Cilantro, Herb bunch (Italian & purple basil, thyme, parsley)
*New potatoes are potatoes harvested before their skins are set – these potatoes have very tender skins and are not meant to store.

Coming Soon
We’ll probably have some beans again next week, more tomatoes and peppers, onions and carrots. Eggplant isn’t long away. We may have some Swiss chard and another round of beets.

Fall Farm Events
Our annual Fall Work Day is scheduled for Sunday, September 21st and our
Harvest Dinner will be held Saturday evening,
November 1st in the Twin Cities.
Mark your calendar and plan to join us!

Farm News
It’s been a week of playing catch-up after garlic harvest and fall transplanting took our attention last week. We managed to get the hoop house tomatoes tended to this week which included some long overdue trellising and weeding. They look good and we can now get through our tomato jungle to pick those beauties. We changed our tomato varieties this year (except for those tasty sungolds which we grew last year).

This year one hoop house--essentially an unheated greenhouse where the tomatoes are planted directly in the ground-- is filled with Early Girl and Celebrity tomatoes. These are the round red tomatoes you’ll receive over the next weeks. They’re both reliable varieties with good flavor. The other hoop house has the sungolds and several varieties of heirloom tomatoes.

Heirloom tomatoes, grown for their flavor, color and texture are definitely not the hard red balls you’ll find in the grocery store in January. These are frequently odd-shaped, thin skinned – sometimes cracked – and taste like tomatoes ought to taste. We’ve been trying different varieties over the years and this season in the heirloom category we have Brandywine and Pruden’s Purple – both large pink and delicious. We also grew Great white, a light yellow creamy tomato and Valencia, a bright orange round tomato. Since these tomatoes do not have nearly the yield of other varieties you won’t get them each week but over the course of the season should have a sampling of them to savor.

We also got the raspberries mulched and trellised. They are just now ripening so that as we head out to pick zucchini or weed beans, we can pick a few to eat along the way. They were also the inspiration for some homemade ice cream the other night … isn’t summer wonderful!

Next Week’s Harvesters
Saturday, August 9 - Colleen & Joe Bartels, Jane & Greg Laco, Kathleen & Chris Morton, Martha & Greg Pomerantz, Ian Whitney Laura Murphy Davin Lageroos
Tuesday, August 12 - Elaine & Mary Ess, Shelly Thron, Russ Heuckendorf,
Barbara Mohr & Jeff Mohr