What’s in your share this week…
Potato Norland Red
Summer Squash – Zucchini Elite/ Lita/ Sunburst Pattypan/ Bennings Green Tint Pattypan/ Horn of Plenty/ Zephyr/ Eight Ball
Sweet Corn – Temptation
Cabbage – Early Jersey Wakefield or Red Express or Primax
Beets and Greens – Bulls Blood/ Detroit Dark Red/ Chiogga/ Touchstone Gold
Peppers – Hot - Serrano del Sol ( 3” x ½” dark green)
Peppers – Sweet – Jimmy Nardello (6” x 1 1/2” curled green or red) Italian frying pepper
Onions – Red Burgermaster, White Superstar, Yellow Walla Walla
Radish – Shunkyo Semi-long
Potato Norland Red
Summer Squash – Zucchini Elite/ Lita/ Sunburst Pattypan/ Bennings Green Tint Pattypan/ Horn of Plenty/ Zephyr/ Eight Ball
Sweet Corn – Temptation
Cabbage – Early Jersey Wakefield or Red Express or Primax
Beets and Greens – Bulls Blood/ Detroit Dark Red/ Chiogga/ Touchstone Gold
Peppers – Hot - Serrano del Sol ( 3” x ½” dark green)
Peppers – Sweet – Jimmy Nardello (6” x 1 1/2” curled green or red) Italian frying pepper
Onions – Red Burgermaster, White Superstar, Yellow Walla Walla
Radish – Shunkyo Semi-long
The BREAD BOX
Your bread this week is a natural yeast bread we call Rustic White Pain Au Levain. This Rustic White bread is wonderful with fresh pesto, butter or all by itself. One of our interns who had to leave early today only had one concern, if the bread would be done in time for her to take a loaf with her.
From the Farmers…
It has been a productive week here at Nitty Gritty Dirt Farm. We’ve finally reached the time of the season when we are actually able to get some maintenance work accomplished in addition to all that HAS to be done. So – all of the field roads have been mowed – lots of disking under already harvested crops is done – the cows have a new electric fenced pen in the cover-crop oats and the cows have a new sun shade. And the really big project that didn’t actually take that much time – the big hoop house in which we pack boxes had been totally taken down and put back up. We moved it about ten feet and adjusted the roof line to make it a better arch which will help the snow (think of it!) slide off in the winter. With a couple of extra intern friends helping the project only took a morning to accomplish and will lead to a lot more efficiency in packing and handling produce this summer. We also plan to add ends and doors to make the ‘temporary’ building more year-around usable.
We also finally figured out a substitute for the metal doors on the big self-feeder for the pigs so now we can put over 500 pounds of feed in the feeder and make it available for the pigs to eat whenever they like. This makes them a lot calmer and happier and they gain weight faster. We also got the self waterer in place which holds over 50 gallons of water – but Jason has had to clean out the sand that the pigs like to dig and fill it up with.
And – we’ve gotten more of the perennial flower gardens weeded. It does seem that with all the fields needing attention the flower gardens are sadly neglected.
Gigi has been away from the farm most of the week helping out with her mom’s convalescence from a fall following knee surgery. We have sorely missed her at the farm but also know that she is needed elsewhere – and thanks to neighbors, shareholders and friends – we’ve been handling everything pretty well.
Once again – we just missed the hail on Tuesday evening – we heard that they got it just west of Harris – but we only had a nice soaking rain most of the day with a bit more in the evening. We need this kind of weather this year but also feel for those folks who are getting more severe weather than we and also those who are not getting any of the rain we’ve been getting.
We are pretty happy that rain is falling too because our neighbor Chick is having a bumper crop of hay and we will be getting 200 bales of third crop hay from him to see our sheep through the winter. We are delighted because we can count on big, solid, excellent quality hay when we get it from Chick – and he’s right next door. We just got 30 bales of straw (the stem part of oats we use for bedding) which we will use to bed the barn and pens at lambing time.
We had our first sweet corn for lunch today – yummmmmm
Until next week….
From the Farmers…
It has been a productive week here at Nitty Gritty Dirt Farm. We’ve finally reached the time of the season when we are actually able to get some maintenance work accomplished in addition to all that HAS to be done. So – all of the field roads have been mowed – lots of disking under already harvested crops is done – the cows have a new electric fenced pen in the cover-crop oats and the cows have a new sun shade. And the really big project that didn’t actually take that much time – the big hoop house in which we pack boxes had been totally taken down and put back up. We moved it about ten feet and adjusted the roof line to make it a better arch which will help the snow (think of it!) slide off in the winter. With a couple of extra intern friends helping the project only took a morning to accomplish and will lead to a lot more efficiency in packing and handling produce this summer. We also plan to add ends and doors to make the ‘temporary’ building more year-around usable.
We also finally figured out a substitute for the metal doors on the big self-feeder for the pigs so now we can put over 500 pounds of feed in the feeder and make it available for the pigs to eat whenever they like. This makes them a lot calmer and happier and they gain weight faster. We also got the self waterer in place which holds over 50 gallons of water – but Jason has had to clean out the sand that the pigs like to dig and fill it up with.
And – we’ve gotten more of the perennial flower gardens weeded. It does seem that with all the fields needing attention the flower gardens are sadly neglected.
Gigi has been away from the farm most of the week helping out with her mom’s convalescence from a fall following knee surgery. We have sorely missed her at the farm but also know that she is needed elsewhere – and thanks to neighbors, shareholders and friends – we’ve been handling everything pretty well.
Once again – we just missed the hail on Tuesday evening – we heard that they got it just west of Harris – but we only had a nice soaking rain most of the day with a bit more in the evening. We need this kind of weather this year but also feel for those folks who are getting more severe weather than we and also those who are not getting any of the rain we’ve been getting.
We are pretty happy that rain is falling too because our neighbor Chick is having a bumper crop of hay and we will be getting 200 bales of third crop hay from him to see our sheep through the winter. We are delighted because we can count on big, solid, excellent quality hay when we get it from Chick – and he’s right next door. We just got 30 bales of straw (the stem part of oats we use for bedding) which we will use to bed the barn and pens at lambing time.
We had our first sweet corn for lunch today – yummmmmm
Until next week….
