Farm news, June 19/2017

We will have the following veggies this week for csa:

lettuce, spinach, radish, turnip, bok choi, arugula, mizuna, mustard greens, beet greens, chard, kale, broccolini, broccoli, kohlrabi, dill, cilantro, pea shoots, and scallions.

We  tried a new variety of kale this year that I’d be hearing lots about: siberian kale.

In the picture below the front row of kale is siberian kale.  In my opinion it tastes like giant mild arugula (yes giant is a flavor – my favorite flavor actually)  Behind that is the black kale and green kale that you typically see.   Behind that is Shenggang (and it looks like he’s singing opera) who’s come back to help for a couple days.


On the farm this week:

It was a happy reunion today ( but I didn’t take a picture!) because Irina from last year came back today and Shenngang also came to today.   Shenngang has been in English school so he couldn’t come back this year; but then one Sunday morning I went outside and found the ditch that needed dug for the electrical wire to the new building was already dug.   I followed it and at the end found Shenggang at the end almost done digging it –  He said he was done school and needed some excercise (true story)

I’m not sure what’s more impressive though, that or this 6′  hole below that Nicholas dug by hand this spring.  After the post holes for the new building had been drilled and the driller had left we noticed a hole was in the wrong spot.  So it was decided that Nicholas would dig a 6′ deep hole by hand.   We’re going to have to have a contest now between Nicholas and Shenggang for who can dig the biggest hole.  I’ll be selling tickets for this exciting showdown once we’ve got a date.

We had our first rain of the summer and it was the perfect amount. Until last week we haven’t had rain; so it’s been nice to take a week off having to water things.  It was also nice to not have rain at the market the day that the weather station said it’s 100% chance going to rain at the market.  I don’t think we’ve been rained on in Wolseley in 3 years now (even when it’s pouring rain everywhere else in the city).   I’m so sure it’s not ever going to rain on us now that I’m going to sell all my canopies.

Every year we see a lot of interesting spiders – often making webs in the tomato trellis.  This year while planting lettuce though, Sarah grabbed a lettuce plug and as she planted it noticed there was this spider on it with all these spider babies on it’s back.  When she dropped it all the babies scattered and then ran back on the mothers back.

If you know what kind of spider this is you get a free bunch of radish!  Hopefully this one will be harder than last weeks question about which door is bigger or we’re going to run out of radishes.

 

That’s it for this week.  See you soon!

Jonathan, Sarah, Jaroslav, Irina, Nicholas and Shenngang