Punkin Chunkin

This week, with all the baby things going on, I decided to give the usual blog writer a break and have you hear from me, Farmer Mike. When I was thinking about what to write, I first thought about talking about all the rain we had in that last storm. As a matter of fact, I had someone from Soil Conservation come out and look at the farm today and he said that the storm was a 1 in a 1000 year storm. How they come up with these figures, I don't know. But I do know that we had sh*^ load of rain. (that's probably not the scientific term for those keeping track at home).
But as the topic suggests, I did want to talk about Pumpkins and other winter squash. As the name rather confusingly suggests, Winter Squash is not something grown in the winter, it actually gets planted in late spring and matures now, but something that can last all winter keeping you fed. It is not as easy to grow as other types of squash for one very good reason. Unlike summer squash that can be seeded, grown and harvested relatively quickly, winter squash basically takes forever. Which is fine, if it wasn't for a disease that comes looking around for any and all squash plants and does a great job of killing them rather quickly. The disease is called Powdery Mildew, and for those of you who have ever grown cucumbers, melons and squash, you might have noticed your plants looking great one day, and terrible the next. There are organic controls for it, but it usually just delays the inevitable.
All this to say that I did harvest pumpkins this week. I planted them to be ready by the middle of October but only as mother nature can do, she made them speed up before they were really ready. What that means for you is, don't hold your breath that these pumpkins will last till Halloween. (They might not last till Tuesday!) You could use them as a practice run for the real pumpkin you get, or you could just stare at them as they remind you of Fall.

This week you will receive, Winter Squash, Beans, Pumpkin (of course), Greens, Lettuce, Onions, Radishes and Potatoes.

Tomato-Palooza!

This past weekend, Farmer Mike opened up the Farm for a rare occurrence...a pick-your-own day!  Thanks to the hurricane's (who we have been thanking profusely every day since she allegedly brought the early arrival of our precious (sorry, we are biased and IN LOVE) baby girl) wet weather and Farmer Mike's absence from the Farm (see last parenthesis), our tomatoes were ready to be harvested or go to spoil.  Rather than waste the gorgeous, delicious remnants of our successful tomato crop, Farmer Mike invited one and all to come and harvest all they could take from the tomato plants.

The weather was less than cooperative, with the skies opening up right around the time that everyone had their picking hands ready.  Thankfully, patience won out and it stopped raining for a bit so that people could harvest away.

Here is the Farm "Chariot" that escorted the pickers to the fields...unfortunately, the "Chariot" was not fully detailed before Saturday's fun:

Here are some close-ups of the tomatoes, dripping with rain.  Thanks, Robert, for really capturing the essence of the tomatoes and the weather in these great photos!

And, the members are hard at work in the fields:

And because I can't resist also sharing with you a few photos of the Farm's newest addition, here is our baby girl, Amelia Taylor Protas, at the hospital with proud Mom and Dad:

She had a little bit of jaundice, so check out her "radioactive" blanket and her cool shades!!

My favorite picture of all time! They hadn't yet removed the little heart-shaped sticker from her jaundice shades, but I think the heart is poetic!

This week you can expect to receive in your share: watermelons, potatoes, red onions, lettuce, winter squash, collards and kale.

Until next time...