Surviving the heat — barely

(CSA Newsletter: Week 26)

Meet this week’s vegetables:

Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Last week was hotter than hot. Hotter than anything I’ve ever experienced before. Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot.

After four consecutive days of high temps far above 100°, ‘dropping’ back into the 90s late last week felt like a very significant cooling trend. I’m sure that everyone has stories of surviving the extreme temps (107°!!!!!). We heard of many CSA members escaping to the coast; others spoke exceptionally lovingly of their heat pumps; and others seemed to make it through with liberal use of cold showers and fans. I, for one, sought solace in my parents’ air-conditioned house many afternoons during the hot heat, and Casey and I have made an afternoon pilgrimage to the river every day since.

But, it was very hard to get work done on the hot days. Although we started work earlier than normal (6 am on Thursday), the mornings were also hot. We moved very slow and prioritized only the most important tasks so as to avoid literally ‘burning out.’

I’m sure we were all comforted by the fact that the hot weather set many new records: record high low temperature, record average daily temperature, record for consecutive number of days above 90°, record for consecutive number of extremely hot days, etc. Hopefully we won’t see so many record-breaking temperatures again for many years.

Now that we’re back to ‘normal’ hot summer weather (still above average), we’re continuing to enjoy the fruits of summer. This week’s share is a fruit explosion: tomatoes, beans, eggplant, cucumbers, and squash! We ate our first ripe melons at lunch today and hope that enough ripen soon to share with you all. We always feel blessed during heat waves that summer food can be eaten with very little heat intervention: peel and slice a cucumber, and you have a ready-to-go, cooling snack! Some fruits though, such as eggplant, do need to be cooked, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed that the forecast of lower temperatures comes true. We’re ready to cook inside again (although we’re grateful for our gas BBQ as much as ever).

Right now when we make our weekly share list, our biggest problem is that we have too many vegetables ready in the fields! Your shares have been well over the normal $20 value lately, because we can’t let all these beautiful fruits go to waste. We hope that this week’s tasty new recipes help you to enjoy this week’s abundant vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

Want to put up some pesto? Order extra basil for next week: $2 bunch (~ 2/3 lb.) Call (503-474-7661) or email farm(at)oakhillorganics(dot)org by Monday evening to place an order (to be picked up at CSA pick-up).