September Farm Update!

By Farmer Richard

Watermelons moving up the harvest belt to be washed!

As we near the end of summer and approach the official start of autumn on September 22, we acknowledge that this is a very unique and sometimes challenging time of the season.  Late summer crops like tomatoes, peppers, melons, watermelons and sweet corn can come on fast and furious in the heat of August leaving us scrambling just to keep up with harvest.  When September comes and we lift our heads to take a breath, it hardly seems possible that just around the next corner the danger of the first frost is looming!  The official first average frost date for our area is September 15!  Yikes!  Now, that doesn’t mean we’ll get frost, but the overnight temperatures have been getting cooler and we’ve had to grab an extra jacket for chilly mornings which reminds us the first frost will be coming soon.  We haven’t seen frost until October for many years as we experience the effects of climate change.  We can’t forget however that climate change can yield extremes on both ends of the spectrum.  Will we get an unseasonably warm fall or a cold one?  We can only guess!

Look at all the Mini Sweet Peppers on one plant!

The challenge of this time of year lies in both the amount of work we have to do as well as trying to work with and around the challenges of weather.  We are still harvesting the last of our summer crops including two plantings of tomatoes, lots of peppers, the last planting of sweet corn, and the last of the melons.  While we’re sad that zucchini and cucumbers are finished for the season, we did breathe a sigh of relief that we could mark those harvests off the production list for the week to free up crew time to do other things….like harvest winter squash!  As we try to finish off summer crops, fall crops are coming in already.  We’re nearly finished with winter squash harvest and started harvesting the first of this year’s celeriac crop last weekend.  The parsnips, carrots, black Spanish radishes, beauty heart radishes and daikon are all in the queue for harvest as soon as this rainy week passes and the fields dry out.  We’ll have a little overlap in time where summer and fall will be demanding our attention simultaneously!

Mountain Merit Red Slicer Tomatoes, a disease resistant
variety in our second planting.

During this time of the year we watch the weather, checking it multiple times per day to plan our work schedule.  We have to be ready to respond to the threat of frost, even if it’s only one cold night followed by a few more weeks of warm temperatures!  We have to make the difficult decisions about whether or not we can harvest the remainder of the most frost-sensitive crops or if we need to invest in covering them.  If the latter, we need time to put the covers in place along with sandbags to hold them down.  You can’t do this at the last minute because conditions are not always appropriate for laying out covers.  Please note, it is not advisable to try to put covers over crops with winds of 10-20 mph or the covers will likely end up in the trees!  If it looks like frost may be coming, peppers and tomatoes are, at present, our most vulnerable crops that would be our priority to cover.  Most other crops, such as lettuce, spinach, parsley, baby bok choi, etc, can take a light frost and recover with minimal to no damage.  Once we start seeing temperatures in the 20’s we’ll have to add more covers to protect our late season head lettuce, escarole, radicchio and tat soi.

Bins and bins of winter squash including
Black Futsu Pumpkins!

I mentioned that we’ll finish our winter squash harvest this week, and the next crop we typically get questioned about this time of the year is the beloved sweet potatoes!  They are sizing up nicely, but could use several more warm weeks of growth.  If this chilly weather looks like it’s going to stay around we’ll likely need to cover the sweet potatoes just for some heat gain to accelerate their growth rate.  We typically start harvesting the last of September of first of October, so it won’t be long!  Both winter squash and sweet potatoes need some time to “cure” before they are delectable, sweet and ready to pack in in your CSA boxes.  Curing helps to set their skins so they store better and develops their flavors and sweetness.  As tempting as it is to eat them as soon as they come out of the field, we know from experience it’s better to wait a few weeks.

Fields put "to bed" with a cover crop to hold the soil in
place over the winter and build fertility in the soil.

In addition to harvest, this is also the time of year when we are preparing to put fields “to bed” for the winter and preparing them for next year’s crops!  Once we’ve taken the final crop off a field for the current season, we need to consider what will be planted in that field next year.  This impacts our decisions about compost and mineral applications as well as figuring out the most appropriate cover crop to plant on the field.  Cover crops are an important part of managing our land, both for fertility but also to prevent erosion and loss of our precious topsoil over the winter.  This week we received four pallets of cover crop seeds from Albert Lea seeds, so as soon as the fields dry out this will become a top priority.

Beauty Heart Radishes as far as you can see!

Despite the challenges, we love this time of year!  The cool working conditions are a welcomed relief from the hot days we’ve worked through over the summer.  Weed seeds germinate more slowly which means our late planted crops can grow faster than the weeds and dominate.  We’re still cultivating and hand weeding, but very soon the weed pressure will lessen.  The cool to cold temperatures of fall also impact the crops in different ways.  The green color of kales, spinach and other greens intensifies and crops such as red lettuce and red mustard produce deep gorgeous leaves.  The cool weather also causes flavors to be more balanced and sweet.  Crops such as radishes and arugula mellow out and, in our opinion, taste much better than when grown in the heat of the summer.  Fall brassicas including cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli and Brussels sprouts will benefit from the cool temperatures and you’ll be able to taste the difference when you eat them!  While many farms start to wind down in late September or October, we’ll continue to go strong and our harvests won’t be done until the very end of November or possibly December!  For those of you who have been with us for years, you know there are still a lot of seasonal favorites remaining to experience this season.  For those of you who may be joining us for the first year, get ready for some hearty fall boxes!  Many longtime members dread the point in the year when they have to return to shopping for produce at the grocery store.  However, if you play your cards right this window of “grocery store shopping” can be pretty minimal.  Now is the time to be preserving things for winter.  We’ve had a great response this year to our “Produce Plus” offerings.  There is still time to freeze peppers and make some tomato sauce to stockpile for winter use!  As we move into fall, there will also be opportunities to stock up on root crops and other vegetables that can store well into winter, even after CSA deliveries are finished.

This year's leeks...coming soon! 

We hope you enjoy eating through this transition point in the season as well.  Tomato season isn’t over yet and peppers are in their peak.  Instead of pairing tomatoes and peppers with zucchini and cucumbers, we can transition to tasty dishes made with fall root crops, winter squash, leeks and potatoes.  It’s another transition in our seasonal eating journey as we follow Mother Nature’s lead.

This will be the first year in many that we will not be hosting our annual Fall Harvest Party.  Late September can be a magical, beautiful time to visit our valley.  However, due to the pandemic precautions we’ve implemented on our farm this year, we’re going to have to settle for connecting through social media and our weekly email connections.  Please know we miss seeing you in person and look forward to opening our farm to you again in a future season.

July Farm Update

By Farmer Richard

Tomatillo fruit hanging heavy on the vines
and filling out their husks!

Despite the fact that we just did a farm and field update last month, a lot has changed and happened since then and we want to let you know what’s happening at the farm! We are at the apex of the season, halfway through the calendar year and one-third of the way through our CSA delivery season. The spring crops and weather were quite moderate and we were able to pack quite nice boxes for the early part of the season. But we know you can only eat so many radishes and lettuce and many of us look forward to all the delicious vegetables of summer! We’ve been delivering cucumbers and zucchini for several weeks and we’re in our second week of beans, but there are more summer favorites coming up very soon! If you don’t have time to read all the details of this week’s update, at least take a look at the pictures! Our hope is that we can connect you with our farm virtually so you know where your food is coming from and can have those images in your mind when you unpack your box each week!

The start of this year's garlic harvest, drying in the greenhouse.

Summer did not enter gently this year. The past two weeks have been a new challenge of very hot and humid days. We had a stretch of days reaching 88-90°F every day with high humidity that left us all with beads of sweat running down our brows early in the day. We started off the summer in a bit of a dry spell, but that has quickly changed as we’ve had frequent rains totaling about 9 inches in the past two weeks. If our more normal spring was a result of the extreme cutback in emissions related to COVID-19 changes in travel, etc, then it leaves us wondering if the sudden and recent switch to extreme weather is connected to “opening up.” Hmm….maybe we don’t want to “go back to normal!” Well, normal or not, we are looking forward to the second half of the season and we have a job to do. So here’s a glimpse of what is yet to come.

Rows of tomatoes in our 1st planting--staked,
tied and setting on fruit!

Spring days are highlighted by lots of planting and weed control. While we’re trying to get everything in the ground and keep up with flame weeding, mechanical cultivation and hand weeding spring crops, we are also planting and caring for the summer crops that will follow. Our efforts to control weeds are directly related to the hand of weather conditions we are dealt. While our crew members have done a good job keeping up with timely cultivations, rainy, wet conditions limit what we can do mechanically. Unfortunately, the weeds thrive in these hot, wet conditions which adds salt to our wound and leaves us with some big hand weeding jobs! We’re doing the best we can, but hand weeding requires a lot of crew time that we just don’t have many days. We’ve had a dedicated crew of four people who were hired specifically for focusing on hand weeding missions, but the weeds are growing faster than they can pull them! While the majority of our experienced H2A crew members arrived back in April, we did have several who received “administrative hold” and were not issued visas. Due to pandemic-related changes with the consulate’s office in Mexico, these members had to return home and wait for the call to return for further evaluation. They were also restricting visas to only those who had had a visa previously and were not considering any new applicants. Finally, the

A hillside sweet corn field....look carefully and
you'll see the deer fence surrounding the
field to help deter the critters.

first week in July we received notice letting us know the consulate’s office was ready to look at their cases. We are happy to report that four more crew members received their visas and made the long journey to Viroqua arriving last Thursday! We have only seen them from a distance as they will remain quarantined for 14 days, separate from the rest of our crew and with no contact with others in the community. They arrived healthy and well, going directly to the house we prepared for them complete with a fully stocked kitchen! They’ll reside in this location until the end of their quarantine and will stay busy during the day tackling their own weeding missions in fields we’ve assigned to them safely distanced from any other people. Thankfully, that is the beauty of being in the country where there are wide open spaces! We look forward to integrating Alvaro, Silvestre, Samuel and Joel into our crew in the near future. They all have special skills and contribute greatly to our farm. We’ve really missed them and are thankful to have them here!

An upcoming crop of green beans,
nicely cultivated and setting on blossoms!

That’s enough about weeds though, lets look at some crops! Our first two crops of beans have yielded very nicely and after this week we still have three more crops coming up. They are all looking good and we’re hopeful we’ll be able to keep the bags of beans coming your way! We also have three crops of edamame coming up. The deer population in our area is fully informed that we grow edamame, so we have to be proactive and make sure we keep these crops surrounded by a tall deer fence to keep them from eating the plants! So far, so good and we hope to deliver the sweet, tasty fresh edamame in the near future.

An early crop of sweet corn, notice the small ears of corn.

Summer isn’t summer without sweet corn! While sweet corn isn’t a big money maker for our farm, I’ve always said it’s a crop worth growing because it earns us friends! Every year we have the goal of growing “the best sweet corn ever!” We’ve had many successful years doing so and hope we can pull it off again this year! We have planted five crops and they’re looking pretty good! The first crop suffered some loss from red-winged blackbirds that dug up about 50% of the seed. The remaining crops fared much better, but we still need to be diligent about keeping the critters out of the field! If the raccoons, deer and birds get a taste of the sweet ears of corn, they can really do some damage. These fields are also fenced and we’ll be monitoring them very closely as the corn matures and reaches the point of harvest. We’re also monitoring for the corn earworm moth which migrates from the south. With the reduced bat populations we have a larger challenge to produce sweet corn without these worms. The researchers and experts say it can’t be done organically, but with careful monitoring and a high level of management we have pulled it off many times before! So, we know it can be done and we’re going to do our best. Please know this is quite challenging to achieve, so if you do find a worm, please be forgiving.

The beloved SunOrange tomatoes--so sweet they're like candy!

The cutest little watermelon!

Tomatoes are another beloved summer crop we know you are all looking forward to. We actually had our first sweet taste of SunOrange tomatoes this week! I only found enough to pick a small handful and between Andrea and Amy, they didn’t last long. We have two crops of tomatoes planted, mulched, staked and tied and looking great! The first crop has a lot of fruit set on and we’re hoping we can start picking some of the early varieties within the next few weeks. The eggplant field is also looking quite nice. The plants have blossoms and the start of some small fruit setting on. Things could happen fast at this point, so we anticipate we’ll start harvesting eggplant within the next few weeks.

Our melons and watermelons are not far from the eggplant field, so it seems fitting to report their status now as well! After a few low yielding, disappointing years, this year’s melon and watermelon fields are looking good and setting fruit.  We’re keeping our fingers crossed that this continues and we’ll all be eating some of those “juice dripping down my chin” melons very soon! Lastly, I want to mention the peppers. We’re finally starting to see some fruit set on. The ½-inch jalapenos are quite cute and we’re hoping some of the other varieties will be ready to pick very soon.

While we’re in the midst of summer, we’re already looking to fall crops! The sweet potato vines are spreading nicely and the winter squash fields look great! On our field tour last Sunday we even spotted a nice-sized festival squash! It will be awhile before it’s mature and ready to harvest, but seeing that fruit made us realize how quickly this year is going! We’ve also started planting our fall root crops and within the next couple of weeks we need to plant beauty heart radishes, black Spanish radishes, daikon, turnips, etc.

A view of the sweet potato (left) and winter squash (right)
fields with blue skies overhead!

We also have to look ahead to the next growing season. We are already selecting and reserving fields for a new crop of strawberries knowing we need to plant a new field in 2021. We are also in the midst of garlic harvest which means we’re selecting and saving garlic for next year’s crop. We have had an unexpected increase in CSA members this year, more than double from last year. We welcome this increase and are hope you will all join us again next year as well! CSA is our preferred market to grow for and benefits our farm in many ways. We’ll see what the next year holds. Later in the fall we will be asking you to commit to the 2021 growing season so we may better plan for next year. We hope you will end this season with an increased appreciation for local and high quality organic produce along with a desire to make a commitment for next year. But for now, enjoy the rest of the season!

Featured Item of the Week: Melons

by Andrea Yoder

Some of the melons grown at Harmony Valley Farm

Melon and watermelon season is finally here! Every year we watch and wait for just the right time to start picking melons—too soon and they won’t be optimally flavorful or sweet, wait too long and we might lose them. Over the years we’ve carefully selected varieties of melons we’ve found to be the most productive, disease resistant, sweet and flavorful varieties that we can grow in our valley. We select smaller varieties that are most appropriately sized for packing in your CSA boxes. In the case of watermelons, our preference is to grow personal-sized seedless varieties. So, here we are in the middle of the season and it’s time to start bringing in the melons. The information that follows will help you identify each variety so you know what you’re eating! You can also refer to the pictures in this week’s “What’s In the Box” email to identify the melons you receive this season.

Sun Jewel Melons:  This is a small melon with a foot-ball shape, bright yellow rind with white stripes and slightly ridged. When you cut it open, you’ll find white flesh that is crisp and sweet. This melon goes well with other fruits in a fruit salad, can be pickled and eaten as a condiment, or you could wrap it with prosciutto and enjoy it as an appetizer.

Sun Jewel Melon

Sweet Sarah Cantaloupe:  Sweet Sarah has a lot going for her. Sarah melons have a more smooth, finely netted rind. The flesh is a typical orange cantaloupe color and has sweet flavorful flesh. We like the flavor of this cantaloupe because it is consistently tasty and doesn’t have much of the “musky” flavor other cantaloupe varieties may have.

Sweet Sarah Cantaloupe 

French Orange Melon:  This is one of our prized varieties that has developed a following over the years. These small melons are a cross between a cantaloupe and a French Charentais melon which is known to be more aromatic. French orange melons tend to be smaller than the Sweet Sarah melons, have a more coarsely netted rind, and sometimes have slightly green striping on the exterior. The flesh of a French orange melon is deeper orange colored, deliciously sweet, and very aromatic.

French Orange Melon

Green Japanese Cantaloupe (aka Ichiba Kouji, it’s Japanese name):  This is a new variety we trialed last year and found that we really like it! It comes in a little later in the season after the Sweet Sarah and French orange melons are dwindling down. The exterior of this melon resembles a Sweet Sarah, but you’ll find the flesh to be honeydew green, smooth and sweet. This is a very flavorful melon that we think you’ll find to be very likeable.

Cantaloupe Horchata

Recipe borrowed from The Best Recipes in the World by Mark Bittman

“The unusual thing about many Mexican fruit drinks is that the seeds are included; they’re blended, so you don’t realize this until you watch them being made, but this is the reason for their wonderfully intense flavors. This procedure works well for cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon, or other melon varieties.”—Mark Bittman.

Serves 4

1 ripe cantaloupe (about 2 pounds)

¼ cup fresh lime juice, more as needed to taste

2-4 Tbsp sugar, to taste (will depend on the sweetness of the melon)

2 cups water

1. Cut the cantaloupe in half; scoop the flesh, seeds and liquid into a blender. Add a couple tablespoons each of lime juice and sugar, along with 2 cups water. Blend until very smooth, adding a little more water if necessary.

  

2. Taste and add more lime juice or sugar if you like. Serve immediately over ice, or refrigerate for up to a couple of hours before serving.

Melon Sherbet 

Recipe featured on www.101cookbooks.com

Melon puree with honey and milk makes a delicious sherbet.

Serves 4-6

1 pound of juicy, extra-ripe, orange-fleshed melon

2 Tbsp mild flavored honey (may need more or less depending on the sweetness of the melon)

½ cup whole milk

Generous pinch of salt

1. Cut the melon flesh from its rind and puree in a blender. You will need 2 cups of puree.

2. Add the milk and salt. Now you want to sweeten to taste. If your honey is in a solid or crystallized state you need to dunk the jar in a bowl of warm water until it is liquid again. This way it will mix easily with the rest of the ingredients. Start by blending in 1-2 Tbsp of the honey and taste. If you think the mixture needs to be sweeter, add more honey. Keep in mind you want the honey to bring out and complement the flavor of the melon, not overpower it or make the sherbet too sweet.

3. Pour into an ice-cream maker, and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Store in the freezer.