Carolyn, Angelica, Bill and our new "port-a-hoopie" over fall kale and chard.

It has been a great week on the farm.  We completed the second of our “port-a-hoopies.”  These walk-in tunnels are a relatively low cost, easy-to-construct mini versions of our big greenhouses.  With just rebar, greenhouse plastic, and rope, we hope to expand our cool-season vegetable production.  We put one of the port-a-hoopies up over our fall planting of kale and chard, and the other one will be used to grow salad greens. 
     
Corn is finally ready this week!  It has been a tough year for the crop, and corn earworms seem to love the stressed-out plants.  We choose to not treat our corn with organic pesticides.  Instead of using pesticides, we cut the tips off of nearly every ear of corn, since that is where the earworm is usually located.  So please forgive the truncated look of many of your ears, and use your own knife on any unwelcome intruders that remain.  We harvest the corn on the morning of delivery to you and they should be delicious. As we heard one farmer say:  10,000 corn earworms can’t be wrong. 

Remember that if you see blue spots on your tomatoes, just wipe it off before eating.  That is the copper residue from the organic spray that we have been using to keep the late blight at bay.  It has worked great and is why we still have tomatoes to harvest, but last week we finally gave up trying to polish every last tomato!

Have a great week, and enjoy the following recipes from fellow CSA members!
Reba and the HCF crew
 

Week 13 veggies:  Tomatoes, Basil, Potatoes, Corn, Green Peppers, Zucchini and/or Zephyr Summer Squash, Cucumber, Kale, Baby Onions

 This week’s recipes:  Levina’s Zucchini Soup, Tomato and Goat Cheese Salad with Basil Vinaigrette