Farm Friday

We're entering a transition season on the farm. As some of our gardens die down, we're starting seedlings for our fall crops. Our squash, zucchini, and cucumber garden is done for the year. Our tomato and green bean garden is done, but we have another one that is almost ready to produce. Watermelons are in (and delicious) and our customers have raved about the taste. The eggplant is amazing and the best we've ever had. This summer we have truly been eating seasonally - almost everything we eat is directly from the garden.  

Last week we discovered an interesting mushroom:

We took it to a fellow vendor at the market - who also happens to be a chef - thinking it was a maitake. He immediately shot that idea down but said he was pretty sure it was edible.  After some research and consulting with another vendor who has wild mushroom knowledge, we were told its a cauliflower mushroom, which is in the same family as the maitakes (and has no poisonous lookalikes - very important). So I cleaned it, sliced it up, and sauteed it in butter. Yum! Now we will keep an eye out for these delicious fungi.  In the meantime, our shiitakes are really starting to come in!

We had another first on the farm - we harvested some of our grapes. This year the black rot and the birds weren't able to get to the all, so Bill picked a few clusters and made some grape jam!

We've added another delivery stop on Wednesdays - a medical clinic. We have two physicians who have been ordering from us and this week I briefly met their office manager and gave her our farm information to share. Looking back to the very beginning, when I tried to sell our excess produce alongside my crafts at the farmers' market and was regarded as a freak, it's amazing to see how far this community has come. As more and more individuals become aware of the serious problem with our food system and/or are diagnosed with serious, chronic illnesses, the local and chemical-free food that we sell is becoming more popular.  We're excited to see how things are going for us and for other local, chemical-free farms.

I've been a bit worried about the butterflies lately.  We have two butterfly bushes plus some wild butterfly weed that are completely covered with butterflies at some point during the summer. This year - nada. During our walk last night, I was saddened when I realized the butterfly weed was no longer blooming and so wouldn't feed any butterflies this year. All I could think about was how our toxic brew that we've created here on earth had eliminated butterflies in our area. However, yesterday morning, while I was waiting for a customer to meet me at the farm house to pick up an order, I saw some tiger swallowtails.  Yay - they're back!  And better late than never.

Have a good weekend!