FARM NEWS 8.10.09

Thanks to y'all who sent me well wishes- I think you helped speed my recovery from my fourth round of tick born illness. So, beside the terrible looking tomato crop, I'm feeling pretty good. There's a saying I've heard other more experienced farmers use in regards to agriculture, "There's always next year." Not to throw in the towel (or trowel in this case) entirely. Round three of our tomato planting still stands blemish free and carrying fruit. If a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, what does a journey of three thousand tomato plants begin with? Three stepped on rotting tomatoes?

Anyway, we've got a bumper crop of onions. How many onions is worth one tomato? Six? Ten? This is the sort of question I torture my crew with all day long. They've grown rather tolerant of my humor, and thankfully have continued to crank out the work at the farm with good cheer (depending on proximity to the tomato crop.) The tomato is the king of importance of all crops. I don't really care to eat them much personally, but I know how important they are to y'all mostly. So know that we will gladly plant 12 tomato plants per CSA member again in 2010, blending 2 parts fatuous optimism with 1 part painful memories and 3 parts amnesia.

Attached is a pic of the late blight on what would've been a bumper crop of tomatoes. Enough said, I suppose.

This week's harvest:
Garlic
cukes
zucchini
celery
onions
eggplant
potatoes
carrots
basil
beets
chard
salad

Enjoy!
Your farmers,
Dan, Tracy, Bea, and Baxter