Making the Cut is Always Difficult
As product selection dwindles down and fall cleanup chores begin, we have decided to make this our final week of delivery for the season.
It has been a truly wonderful season, filled with an abundance of gorgeous vegetables and vibrant flowers from the garden. While not every crop thrived in the intense heat and dry weather of July and August, we are so thankful that our mineral-rich glacier till soil with a generous layer of mulch held onto the moisture so well.
We certainly missed supplying fresh lettuce and other greens through the summer heat, but in hindsight, they likely wouldn't have survived those soaring temperatures anyway!
When it came to garden visitors, we successfully re-homed five raccoons, caught and released one skunk (happily without a single smelly incident), and—once we wrapped the porcupine's favorite crops in triple layers we only had to deal with minor fruit tree damage and a bit of fruit theft. The local porcupine is still around, and I fully suspect it will be back next year!
Right now, we are busy canning, freeze-drying, and freezing our harvest. Salsa, carrots, beets, grapes, bay leaves and cabbage are currently in rotation, accompanied by my yearly note to self not to grow quite so much cabbage next year (though I think I said that exact same thing last year, too!). We still have Swiss chard and kale waiting to be preserved, potatoes to dig up, and the very last of the onions to pull.
While the flowers are still blooming beautifully, some varieties are reaching the end of their run, meaning those beds will soon be cleared and added to the compost pile. We may still deliver fresh blooms to Cooper Farms Stand and Fare Share Co-op for a little while longer, though we are taking it week by week.
We are already looking forward to farming and selling our produce and flowers again next year, keeping our wonderful regular customers in mind as we choose our crops and expand our cut flower selection.
I want to offer a special thank you to my dear friend Lois for her wonderful companionship and help in the garden. Crops always seem to grow better when they are planted by two people: one who wishes them luck, and the other who speaks words of encouragement to them.
We sincerely appreciate all of our customers for your wonderful support, and we truly hope you have enjoyed the season as much as we have and to those who cannot shop with us but continue to read our weekly newsletter- Thank You!
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Another type of pears available this week along with peaches, which may have to ripen a bit before eating.
We will offer dried flower arrangements in late October.
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