July really sapped my energy with the heat, drought, and overwhelming pressures from weeds and blister beetles.  Now that it’s cooling down some I am feeling a little more energetic and enthusiastic about getting things done around here, and posting about it.  Though I haven’t taken a lot of pictures over the past few weeks, here’s a bit of what we’ve been up to lately…

Our raspberries are coming in now!

Midsummer heat means greens are scarce… so we brought some of these purslane shoots to the market.  We are going to have to get a little more creative in the future and grow some of the less-well-known greens midseason to meet the demand for green stuff.

Edible flowers for the salad mix.  These are gem marigolds, no bigger than a nickel.

Our trial corn plot ended in sorrow, which was no big surprise.  We were definitely expecting corn ear-worms to ruin our plans.

We grew a beautiful bi-color open-pollenated variety.  The raccoons cleaned them out each night just before they matured.

I did get a few bites of a cob they left behind, and it was delicious!  And yes, there were corn ear-worms on it.

We harvested much of the winter squash.

The beds were quite weedy and we needed to get them out before the weeds set seed.

Okra growing.  Our unirrigated patch has a much different growth habit than our irrigated row.

Lots of peppers to harvest.  These are Biscayne and jalapeno peppers.  The Biscayne are a thin-walled sweet pepper, great for stuffing or salads.  The jalapenos have been huge this year.

Our onion harvest.  We learned our lesson on curing the onions in a greenhouse as many of them got sun-scald.  It would not have been a problem except that we were forced to change the plastic from the previous covering of white plastic to clear plastic after the big storm.  That has made it unbearably hot (and bright) in there for the past month and a half.  Luckily it is cooling down now and I am able to do the post-harvest washing in relatively comfortable conditions.

Ginger growing in the high tunnel.  We hope to begin harvest sometime in mid to late September.

Potato harvest.  We grew 11 varieties this year.  Some of our favorites so far have been Blue Gold, Austrian Crescent fingerlings, and Salem.  Since we don’t have storage facilities we just dig as we need them.

I’ve been making time amidst the work to enjoy the cornucopia of flavors I harvest each week.  Here is a cherry tomato salad, with E.B.’s fresh farmstead cheese, basil, and balsamic vinaigrette.  Mmm Mmm good!

Mid-summer lunch: potato salad with celery and onions, fennel and orange slaw, locally made croissant with heirloom tomatoes, cheese and honey mustard!  All from our farm and the local bakery except the cheese, orange and the mustard!  I suppose I could harvest my own mustard seed…

Celebrating our birthdays.

The fall garden, just after planting, several weeks ago.

Nine more weeks of market!  I love doing the market, but at the same time I am looking forward to sleeping in past 4:00 am on Saturdays!