Big onions and summer rain
Rain, glorious rain (how to tell someone you're a farmer without telling them you're a farmer, haha).
In the field:
Planted out more courgettes (15), squash (10), beetroot (250+ in 2 beds), lettuces, peas (3rd crop), cucumbers and chilli plants. Polytunnels now being fully used!
Direct sowed 2 beds of runner beans
Defoliaged the tomatoes (we can't remember the correct term!)
Harvested about 15kg of beetroot, 70 lettuces, 2 kgs mini cucumbers, about 15 courgettes - yellow ones are ours!
Weeded a LOT
In Chris's words, it's been a mammoth week
And check out those tiny leeks Rosie planted out a few weeks ago - they're looking good!
In the boxes:
The onions are HUGE this week (we seem to have gone from teeny tiny to massive) so that's why you've only got a couple in the boxes, pretty sure one big one will work for quite a few meals. Some of the courgettes have come in a bit battered, which is a shame, but hopefully soon our crop will be keeping us in courgettes and we won't have to rely on ones that have travelled. The lettuces are ours from Prion and look beautiful but are all different sizes.
With the beets and the carrots, it's worth taking the leaves off when you get them, as they will last longer then. You can use the leaves too!
Small boxes: cauliflower, pepper, summer greens, cherry tomatoes
Regular boxes: broccoli (better than last week's, yay, the icing post harvest seemed to work - sorry again if you had dodgy broccoli last week), cucumber, courgette, vine tomatoes, beetroot, mushrooms, lettuce
In the shop:
Cauliflowers, palermo peppers and red peppers, new potatoes, carrots with/without tops (only a few without tops), onions, vine / cherry / heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms, fresh turmeric
A few oranges, bananas, gooseberries, maybe some other berries
From Prion we should have - peas, beetroot, lettuces, kale, spring/summer greens, courgettes, mini cucumbers, rhubarb
+ eggs
+ sourdough
+ Pentrefelin milk
+ organic beer
Recipe inspiration:
This courgette pasta is a super simple and super yummy way to use courgette, another reason to feel grateful I alway have a lemon in the house as lemon just brings to life so many veggies.
Finally, here's an interesting video (3-4 minutes) from Guy Singh-Watson - of Riverford veg boxes - talking about labour and harvesting challenges.
have a good week