Head Deep in Sunflowers, Knee Deep in Lambs

Market List; 

Tomatillos, Lemon Cucumbers, 

Crystal Apple Cucumbers 

Slicing Tomatoes, Mixed Cherry Tomatoes, 

Yard Long Beans, Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans, Buckets and buckets of Sunflower Bouquets and Foragers Salad Mix

Sam's Famous Salsa and Salty Dill Pickles 

 

Boy howdy, the girls in the field have been throwing out some big lambs. This hefty boy was born just the day before this pic to Sunny- well lets just say that I'm surprised that he didn't walk out. What a chunk!

 If you look behind them, you'll see his father, the reason why; our registered St. Croix Ram, Reggie but I call him The

 Big Cheese- Reggiano that is. Here is         another picture of him, believe me, he was bigger, He's been on a diet. 

We will have Smoked Tomatillo Salsa the week of September 4th. Sorry it's not sooner Folks but I can either cook or I can Farm but sometimes not both, We have a Wwoofer this whole this week so we worked on Farm projects, most specifically getting the rest of the tomatillos in hand and finishing an Asparagus bed that we started early this Spring. 

So the tomato patch is looking great,

but there are a lot that look like this; 

It's from the dratted cucumber beetle. They cause distortion in all kinds of vegetables. You might recognize it from those funky looking cucumbers where one end is very small and the other is large. Cucumber beetles are the worst for spreading disease and destroying crops. They also eat holes in your green beans and chew up your sunflower petals. We try and stay on top of them but nothing really works except the stronger pesticides like Pyrethrum. It's organic but it's hell on bees so we tend to stay away from it. Mostly it's hand picking and killing them. We could spray the Pyrethrum at night but when they are the worst is in the Fall. Many Fall mornings after a previous hot day, we wake up to a heavy dew and this would liquidize the Pyrethrum again. Bees love the cucumber blossoms which are entwined with another of their favorites the tomatillo flowers, It's just not worth the risk to me. I'll just keep squishing them and planting extra. They still taste amazing though, we never refrigerate our tomatoes. It does make a difference in the flavor. There is a flavor component that shuts down at around 55 degrees that is not recovered when they are back at room temp. Our tomatoes are stored at 70 degrees. 

So we made it through another desperately hot week and there is another hot Market forecasted.  

We'll see you there, with yummy food and refreshing drinks. . 

God's blessings on you and yours, 

TTFN

Sam and Billy