The first of the “prune” type plums will be ready to pick for next week’s CSA!
On Monday, we passed another “cross quarter day” in the calendar — Lammas, the halfway point in the summer season. As with all of the four seasons in the year, the first and second halves bring with them distinctive experiences. The first half of summer follows the spring trend of abundant green growth but with the addition of all the earliest fruits in the orchards and on our summer annual plants.
But the second half of summer, from now until the equinox, turns the world’s focus even more to fruiting and maturation. It is in these next few months that we will pick bins and bins of fruit, much of it to store for eating during the following fall and winter. Even sitting here in our house, I can see the large red apples ripening in our home orchard, weighing down branches.
Late summer’s golden hue has taken hold in the ashes.
The colors of the season shift too. Just this last week, we all noticed and commented on the beginning of the color change in the ash trees. They always begin to turn golden and yellow mid-summer, slowly taking on an autumnal hue and then finally dropping their leaves in fall itself. Since one side of our farm is a waterway treed primarily with ashes, our visual landscape changes significantly when they start this slow late summer turning. When you add the dormant grasses at the edges of all our fields, the picture glows golden yellow-brown under the summer sun. Green has given way to brown. But a most vibrant brown — the brown of work well done. These early turning plants have clearly already done their work for the year — the ash trees long ago flowered and have matured their little inconspicuous fruits, and their water supply in the creek is mostly dried up. So, they begin to rest now.
Our rest is still many months out! Which is fine with us, because we love this time of year. It’s hard to imagine a better place to be than an abundant farm in August (especially when just a five minute drive to the river). When we’re not harvesting, we’ve been happily tending to our wild edges — mowing in the orchards, weeding, and mowing, and weeding. But, this time of year, those tasks feel less “Sisyphean” than they do in May or June, because really the rate of vegetative growth has slowed (as has the water supply for parts of the farm that we don’t irrigate actively). So, if we mow an edge of the farm now, it will likely stay tame(ish) through the end of the season. The work thus feels very satisfying!
As does the eating of all the good food. When the children ask for a snack, how wonderful to set out a bowl of plums or slice one of the earliest apples. Simple, delicious, foods to feed body and soul.
Enjoy this week’s vegetables!
Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla
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Meet this week’s vegetables:
- Plums — More of our juicy Asian plums. Soon the “prune” types will arrive!
- Chehalis apples
- Green beans
- Green peppers — Once upon a time, we learned that green peppers are unripe red peppers. And, then, for a while we were very confused about why anyone would want to eat an unripe food and we poo poo’ed green peppers as being inferior. Then, after a few more years of cooking and eating, we decided that green peppers are wonderful. When they are in their “green” state, they are an entirely novel food, one that can be appreciated for its sake rather than just as the warm-up to a ripe pepper. We love to put green peppers in lots of dishes. I usually dice them and sauté them with onions or garlic and then add zucchini and/or kale (and lots of butter, of course, because y’all know that I love. the. butter.) and cook until it is all tender and delicious. That’s a staple dish around here in the summer.
- Tomatoes — I feel like I really don’t need to ever talk about tomatoes. Because, well, tomatoes feel the love. And they’re so easy! It’s true! We eat tomatoes daily this time of year, and we rarely cook them. Instead, we simply slice them and enjoy. Casey loves a few slices with his breakfast of eggs and cooked greens. My favorite thing is to spread plain goat cheese on half of a roll and then put a slice of tomato on top. I think that is one of the quintessential summer foods for me. Especially when eaten by the river. Which I did today for lunch.
- Cucumbers
- Basil
- Kale
- Chard
- Zucchini
- Carrots
- Beets
- Potatoes
- Torpedo onions
- Garlic
And this week’s extra goodies from the farm:
- Eggs — $6/dozen
- Goat — Goat chops are $14/lb. Organs and bones are $6/lb.
- Beef cuts — Roasting type meats are $10/lb, and steaks are $14/lb. Organs and bones are $6/lb.
- Ground beef — The best ever — $10/lb
- Beef stew meat — $10/lb
- Pork organs, fat & bones — $4/lb
- Coming soon: more lamb!
