“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Week 10 produce
- Bell peppers
- Hungarian hot wax peppers
- Sweet corn
- Basil (pesto bunch)
- Tomatoes
- Eggplant
- Sweet onions
- Green beans
- Summer squash
- Cucumbers
- Red potatoes – full
Farmer notes
- Another jammed box of summer goodness
- Corn is ‘children’s sized’ ears for single and half
- Blanch corn and cut it off to use with cucumbers, peppers, onions, tomatoes and squash then splash with some zesty Italian or balsamic and olive oil/s+p
- Harvest Farm Party is Saturday October 15th anytime from 2-8
- It is a great year for green beans and peppers
- Slice a tomato and enjoy with cut up basil and some parmesan
- Green beans are phenomenal mixed with oil, salt and pepper and placed on a cookie sheet and put on the grill, on broiler or in the oven
- It is 5:30 am now and the interns are cutting basil in the full moon dawn
- Please return all of our boxes and ice packs
- Wash the produce before you eat it
Family fun
Each summer at about this time some of my siblings drive up to the farm for a couple of days to can tomatoes, make salsa and laugh our a—- off. This year we also froze 175 ears of sweet corn and made up a couple batches of pesto. Andy, Bonnie, Ken, and Paul joined me this last weekend Sat. – Mon. to preserve some of this summer’s bounty. To be completely honest, I would not make the time to do this work if they did not come up to help out. Don’t get me wrong, they walk away with some goodies also. We basically use about a third of the tomatoes that are damaged and without enough integrity to send in the boxes and would otherwise just compost in the field. We ended up with 162 quarts of tomatoes, some blended and some whole – out of which I was able to put 42 into my pantry to use all winter long. 4 gallons of cut tomatoes were frozen for use in the chili for the fall farm party and some of the 10 gallon bags of frozen corn will be used for that as well. The pesto I put into ice cube trays, froze and then into baggies for winter cooking.
This is always a time I really look forward to. It is some pretty long days with plenty of work, but also some very good eating, visiting and enjoying the blessing of family. The memories are relived pretty much every time I open one of those jars of tomatoes, take a bag of corn from the freezer, or pop a cube of pesto into a mid-winter soup. I hope that you are making some similar memories this summer to tuck away for future comfort. ~Norm
Pesto
Strip the leaves from the basil stems and put them into a food processor with some olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper to taste, and some nuts and parmesan cheese if desired. Mix well into a paste or spread, adding more oil or any other ingredient as needed. It keeps well in the refrigerator for a week or two, or can be frozen to use later. It is wonderful on crusty bread, mixed with pasta, or with about any vegetable. It smells and tastes like the height of summer. Enjoy!!
