Week #8 Saturday, Aug. 1st –Tuesday, Aug 4th , 2009 Downloadable Word .doc for printing

In your bag
Beets
Carrots, New Potatoes
Cucumbers
Sugar snap peas or Broccoli
Filet Beans, Garlic*
Zucchini & Summer squash
Sweet Spanish Onions
Tomatoes (a sampling that will include sungold cherry tomatoes & either early girl or an heirloom)
Lettuce, Cilantro
Basil Bunch (enough to make pesto!)
*The garlic is fresh and should be stored in your refrigerator just as you would a fresh onion.

Coming soon
I think we’ll have some fennel next week and maybe a cabbage the week after that. We should have more beans, tomatoes, cucumbers and maybe peppers & Swiss chard next week too.

August Payments Due
Many of you chose to pay for your farm share in two installments. The second payment is now due. If you’re unsure how much you owe, please contact us and I’ll look it up.

Greens Report
We asked you in the last newsletter to let us know if we were sending too many greens or if the amounts were about right for you. So far the results are something like this:
“Keep ‘em coming” - 5
“Enough already” – 2
We’d like to hear from a few more. If you have a minute, send us a quick e-mail and let us know how you’re like the greens.
Thanks!

Farm News
The garlic harvest was completed by last Saturday’s crew. They dug the last two rows and spread them out to cure in the greenhouse. Thanks to all who helped along the way – planting, mulching, weeding, picking scapes and finally, harvesting.

For years we’ve resisted deer fencing. We had our reasons. Our gardens are spread out making them difficult to fence. It’s an investment of time and labor. We weren’t sure it would be effective. Our dog was doing an okay job of keeping the deer away. We tried the Irish Spring trick (not effective). Now, it was time. We have fenced in the beans and hopefully fenced out the deer with a couple strands of wire powered by a solar fencer. It went up quickly and, if it proves effective, we should be able to fence small plots where needed. We’ll let you know how it works. I still have visions of waking up in the morning to a party of deer feasting inside the fence.

We’ve been getting steady rain for the past week – never much at any one time really but it all adds up and we are appreciating every drop. The temperatures however are remaining quite cool. We heard this morning that it’s the 3rd coolest July on record! It has us a little concerned for those heat loving crops like tomatoes, melons, peppers and eggplant and of course for the fall vegetables as well. We are very thankful to have put some of our peppers in the hoop houses this year. We did so, hoping for some red peppers but clearly we’ll need to pick them as green ones. The peppers in the field are so far behind it’s not clear when or if we’ll be getting fruit from those plants. So far, we’ve had a good spring and early summer and our hopes are high but cautious for the remainder of the season.

Next Week’s Harvesters
Saturday, August 8th - Joe & Colleen Bartels, Robin Hedlund & Dan Preble,
Andy Nederveld & Sharon Teska, Perl/Socha Family
Tuesday, August 11th - Nancy Dilts & Dan Philippon, Aaron & Jennifer Pederson
Michael Scanlan & Monique Sletta, Shelly Thron, Mary Beaudoin & Ty Thompson-Chavez