Lettuce prey.

Dear KCSA community,
 
Bolting (prematurely flowering) lettuce is common in the hot and humid summer months here in SE PA. Lettuce simply can’t stand the heat! It either shuts down entirely (goes dormant) or panics and goes into emergency reproduction mode (bolting). Growing lettuce when it is cooler—in spring and fall—is a lot more predictable and produces the biggest, crispest, and sweetest heads.
 
This season, we were so close to having 13 straight weeks of lettuce on the share. That’s definitely our record of consecutive weeks! Even at this point, exactly halfway through the season, and despite the fact that we have literally just run out of lettuce (don’t panic, we just planted more), I feel confident enough to say that this is our best lettuce year so far…
 
This is no accident. Each successive year we tweak the lettuce sowing schedule. After year one, we realized we needed to increase the number of sowings per season and focus on growing more heat tolerant lettuce varieties. After year two, we further increased the sowings per season and trialed many different heat tolerant varieties of lettuce to find the most adaptable to our farm. And, after year three, we narrowed our head lettuce varieties down to the six best performers. With, yet again, a slightly higher sowing frequency rate, we reduced the number of heads grown in each succession, forcing our hand to harvest the heads when they were little more compact. This has meant less wastage and more harvested heads for members—a win, win! 

Now, we can’t claim that every member got two heads of lettuce each week because there were a couple of harvests where some members got bagged salad mix. This salad mix was also part of our latest experimentation in trying to curb KCSA’s mid-summer bolting lettuce dilemma! It didn’t quite work out to plan; however, we did get some harvesting from it. Not only was the timing slightly off, but the lettuce still prematurely bolted despite successfully lowering the temperature in the tunnels with the shade cloth. Not only was it still hot in there (it has been a consistently very hot summer), we believe the shaded structure stressed the plants, especially over the last few overcast weeks, and made them “leggy”.
 
This happened with the tomatoes in 2018. Now, for those who don’t remember, 2018 was a really wet year. In July we also had a two week stretch of storms and overcast weather where it felt like we didn’t see the sun! That season, we were experimenting with shade cloths over the tomato tunnel to reduce the temperature in the tunnel to decrease the damage caused to the flowers by excessive heat (>90F can = dead flowers). We didn’t have enough shade cloths to cover the whole structure, so the plants at the front of the house (unshaded) looked fine and the plants at the rear of the structure (shaded) were 6ft taller and spindly. It was quite bizarre.
 
So, as clear, bright skies in the summer months become less consistent and predictable, shade cloths over tunnels do not seem to be the solution to reduce bolting! In fact, it could be exacerbating the issue during the new normal of unpredictable weather. We have been tweaking our tomato plantings to try and accommodate this as well. The importance of having lettuce all season is up for debate. Perhaps, the solution is to figure out what other greens we could prioritize to have as a substitute for lettuce in late August/early September?
 
Dandelions have been introduced for this reason, but we know they are not everyone’s cup o’ tea! We tried to get collards in earlier this year, but they have been mercilessly attacked by flea beetles and harlequin beetles, and are not a good substitute for salad. Neither is chard, despite its versatility and our seamless spring to fall transition! Maybe, the lull in salad greens is inevitable? We just have to accept that and move on…
 
Cheers,
Andrew

Peak Peppers!

Dear KCSA community,
 
Not too much to report since last week's newsletter. We have survived the rain and overcast weather and are looking forward to some sun and cooler temperatures this week. Hopefully the ground will dry out soon! We should still have time to direct sow our fall turnips, radishes, carrots, beans, beets and spinach if conditions remain favorable this week!

We are also getting ready to transplant our fall bok choy, mustard greens, arugula, napa cabbage and kohlrabi. We are on to our last landscape-orientated, letter-sized page in our sowing schedule. There are "officially" only three sowings left! From our perspective, the last sowing of the season is always bitter sweet.

We are past peak tomato season now, but we are right in the midst of peak pepper season. The Sullivan Pepper plants are loaded (although we just harvest over a thousand of them today!)

There remains plenty of cherry tomatoes and hot peppers out their for u-pick. The basil is still hanging in there as well!

There are labels for the hot peppers out in the field as we don't want members to spoil their dinner with the accidental addition of a ghost pepper! Our hot pepper identification guide is also on our website.

It has been a great harvest season thus far and, weather permitting, this should continue into the fall. Over the next couple of weeks, members will notice a lull in the greens that are available. We believe, though, that the last 12 weeks of harvest and all the current summer goodies make up the difference!

See you at the pick up shed.

Andrew

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Dear KCSA community,
 
What a crazy week! Tropical storms, electrical storms, burst creek banks, power outages and closed roads. Most members made it out to pick-up though! Got to get those veggies!
 
By the way, the Kennedy Bridge is reopened again. I am personally very glad about that as the downed trees and bridge closure increased my commute 20-fold last week! Although, looking on the bright-side, this did give me some phone charging time with the power out.
 
We are in another transitional period at the farm. Spring plantings have either ended or are coming to an end. Fall plantings are not quite ready yet. This usually means a little lull in the available greens. Not only is there a gap between plantings for spring and fall but any greens planned for summer usually struggle. Dill and cilantro are done for a while. Lettuce is touch and go as well. We’ll continue to try our best over the next few weeks but we are largely reliant on our summer crops. This means peppers, eggplants and tomatoes…oh my!
 
A new addition to u-pick this week are our red hot chili peppers! They’ll be on at a quart, so there is no need to give them a weigh, give them a weigh, give them a weigh, now…when harvesting. Please see our hot pepper identification guide for the hottest. Shishitos are now also on u-pick.


 

This week we have also started harvesting our famed Sullivan’s Favorite Italian Frying Pepper. For those not in the know, the Sullivan's are the original farmers of Kimberton CSA. They started the farm in 1987 along with the Kimberton Waldorf School and interested members in the community. That means Barbara and Kerry Sullivan were the first farmers in Pennsylvania, and the third in the U.S., to manage and run a CSA.

Now, from my understanding the Sullivan Favorite is derived from a hybrid Italian frying pepper. Clearly, the Sullivan's loved a challenge, as saving seed from a hybrid is a lot more complicated than saving pepper seed from an open pollinated (O.P.) variety.


For an O.P. variety, the seed has already been stabilized, so all you need to do is pick the traits you want to enhance in that variety, i.e., taste, size, color, and then save seed and resow that seed every year. However, with a hybrid, you also need to stabilize the peppers to ensure consistency when saving the seed from year to year.
 
To put this in perspective, after saving seed from a hybrid pepper and resowing that seed the second year, your plants will produce (on average) a third of the mama pepper, a third of the papa pepper and a third of the offspring pepper—the offspring pepper is the original hybrid you want to save. So, even before saving the offspring peppers, you need to identify and then dispose of the mama and papa pepper plants and then select peppers from the offspring plants with the traits you want to enhance.

Once you resow those offspring pepper seeds the third year, (on average) you will produce a sixth of the mama peppers, a sixth of the papa pepper and two thirds of the offspring pepper. After identifying and disposing of the mama and papa peppers again, you can select peppers from the offspring to resow the following year. This needs to continue for a couple more years to stabilize the seed as an O.P. variety (and still a mama and papa pepper plant might randomly appear)!

So, after many years of stabilizing the hybrid pepper, the Sullivan's started saving the seed for Turtle Tree Seed, a biodynamic seed saving workshop out of Camphill Village in Copake, NY. We continue to save the Sullivan Favorite seeds, following in the footsteps of the Sullivan's and our direct predecessors: Birgit and Erik Landowne. They really are a great tasting pepper!
 
Cheers,
Andrew

Closed bridge over flooded waters

Dear KCSA community,
 
The newsletter was on hiatus last week. But we are back with a farm update.

First, due to the torrential rain expected during pick up hours tomorrow, for this week only, we will be open to all members scheduled to pick up/u-pick on Wednesday (8/5) from 9am-12pm, in addition to our usual 1pm-7pm hours on Tuesday (8/4). Sticking to your allocated time windows is not important this Tuesday, either! The storm is predicted to be at its heaviest from 1pm-4pm. Please remember overflow parking is in the Kimberton Waldorf School.

Further, as most of our Friday members know, signs are up diverting traffic away from Kennedy Bridge. I can confirm that the bridge is, in fact, now closed. We have been told that this time it is only for a week...members should expect periodic closures in the future. For those not in the know, Kennedy Bridge is the covered bridge crossing French Creek at W. Seven Stars Road, right beside the Kimberton Waldorf School.
 

This means if you are driving to the farm from Kimberton/Phoenixville area, on W. Seven Stars Road, you should take follow the following detour:

  • Turn right on Hare Hills Road, north, toward PA 23 and PA 724

  • After you cross the metal grated bridge, take a left on Miller Road.

  • Follow Miller Road until the T-junction and then take a left on Hickory Grove Road.

  • Follow Hickory Grove Road until the T-junction and then take a left on W. Seven Stars Road.

  • The farm will be on your right just over the hill.


 

We have a few new vegetables soon to be on the share since our last communication: celery, garlic, collards, peppers and eggplant. On u-pick we have cherry tomatoes, tomatillos, and ground cherries

The celery is being harvest a little early due to some disease. It is difficult to grow celery. As one variety is worse off than the other, however, we think it might be seed-related. Nonetheless, when fungal spores get established, they spread quickly! We'll probably never be able to grow big celery hearts like the ones you can get in the store, but our bunches are perfect as a nice crisp, tasty, summer treat!

Heads of garlic will also be making their first appearance on the share. Members should note that we have sorted the garlic into larger, smaller and open bulbs. The open (damaged) bulbs will be on the share first as these have the shortest storage capacity. The smaller bulbs will be next. And by the time we are getting into our larger bulbs, we'll be sorting through them again to set aside the bulbs we'll need for seed. We have two varieties this year: German Hardy and Creole. German hardy are big bulbs with a few big cloves. The creole are smaller with more cloves. The creole has a slight reddish tinge to the skin as well.

Eggplant is self explanatory. We have a long, skinny Asian variety and a more bulbous Italian variety. Eggplant can be a little temperamental, so these will ebb and flow.

Collards are just coming in and hopefully they'll last through the fall. Expect a little insect damage!

And finally our sweet peppers are ready! We have a few varieties that will make it on to the share. Long term members will be familiar with our Sullivan Favorite Italian Frying Pepper. More information on them will be forthcoming in a newsletter in the next couple of weeks!

Avoid the flood!

Andrew

Tomato Orthography

Dear KCSA community,
 
I feel it prudent to give the members a veggie update this week, so, for those who remember, perhaps we’ll pick up where we left off with last week’s newsletter, next week….
 
We managed to squeeze in a special treat on the share Friday—shishito peppers and tomatoes! Over the next few weeks, we should see some more tomatoes and peppers.
 
Shishito peppers are a Japanese frying pepper. They are a few inches long and are generally harvested when green (although they can be harvested red as well). As the name suggests, they are frying peppers, but are more often skewered and grilled. The skin and flesh are very thin and blister quickly, for an easy chargrilled delicacy. An old farmer’s tale is that, 1 in 100 are hot. I’m not sure I believe it as I think I’m in the centurion shishito eating club and have yet to have a hint of non-grilled heat in ‘em!
 

Although many of our tomatoes may look like heirlooms this season, we technically only have one (the Speckled Roman paste tomato) available due to some…you guessed it…problems in spring. After spending lots of time nurturing our wide variety of heirlooms, they literally turned brown over night! We lost several of our favorite open pollinated varieties, too—the difference between an open pollinated and heirloom variety is age! In fact, all heirlooms are open pollinated but not all open pollinated tomatoes are heirlooms. Further, the word heirloom would appear to not follow the rule: I before E except after C!
 
Anyway, as we do follow the mantra “hope for the best, plan for the worst,” we did have some spare hybrid seedlings ready to go as back-ups. So, this season we will have heirloom Cherokee Purple and Brandywine lookalikes, called Cherokee Carbon and Martha Washington; a big, juicy, orange slicer called Marmalade; and, according to Jo Robinson’s Eating on the Wild Side a red “medium-sized, globe-shaped, mild flavored…high in antioxidants,” tomato named Jet Star.
 
In addition to the solitary heirloom Speckled Roman, and our go- to red paste tomato Granadero, this year we also have a yellow paste tomato called Orange Banana. We also have a wider selection of cherry tomatoes coming to u-pick. Members will be please to know that we ditched the determinates and have gone back to the indeterminates, so the cherry tomato harvest season should run right up to the first frost. Fingers crossed!

Leeks will also be on the share this week. These are being harvested a little premature as we need the space. Hopefully, members will be able to tell the difference between the mild leeks and the more pungent scallions. If in doubt, the leek greens are trimmed, and a little darker and flatter, than their more oniony counterpart. This second flush or scallions replaced our white bunching onions that were decimated in spring by the corn maggot. A good decision, you’ll agree!
 
The Euro cucumbers are done for the season. Picklers are winding down and so are the slicers. The summer squash and zucchini are also starting to slow down. They’ll be on the share for a few weeks yet, but in less abundance. There should be more zucchini and cucumbers toward the end of summer, however, members should consider that the last planting will not be as productive as the first!
 
We have had a good 8-week stretch of head lettuce (yes, we’re only 8 weeks in!), but in this heat they tend to either go into thermal dormancy or go to flower (bolt) really quickly. We will continue to sow, transplant, cultivate and water them, but during the end of July through August, they won’t be nearly as consistent.
 
The kale is suffering in this heat as well and there will be a break between the spring and fall planting soon. The beets and carrots are done until fall. We are sowing the next succession soon, so plan on their return in October.
 
Cheers,
Andrew

Garlic breath

Dear KCSA community,
 
Breathing is an essential life process. In the northern hemisphere, from the winter solstice to the summer solstice, the earth exhales a long slow breath into the cosmos as the sun slowly grows from its lowest point in the sky (shortest day) until it reaches its peak (the longest day). From the dormancy of winter to the flurry of spring this earthly exhalation pushes vegetative life up toward the sun.
 
At KCSA, this is epitomized by growing hardneck garlic. Individual cloves are planted toward the end of fall (around Halloween), catching the tail end of this inhalation and ensuring some root growth before winter. With that foundation, and after some winter dormancy, the greens start to sprout in early spring, pushing through the soil surface.
 
A few weeks before the summer solstice, flowers start to emerge from the hardneck garlic. This is another way garlic reproduces, via its seeds. It is much easier to propagate a new bulb from just a single clove, however, so we snap the stems off before they flower and bunch them as a delicious spring treat—garlic scapes! This, in turn, forces the last of the plant’s energy into the growing the bulb.
 
A week or so after the summer solstice (around 4th July) it’s time to dig the bulbs up. To maximize storage potential, you want the bulb to be tight. We then dry them in a warm, shaded area that is well ventilated. After curing for a few weeks, the garlic is trimmed, sorted for seed garlic and stored in a cool, dark place. Our garlic is currently curing. It will be on the share in a few weeks. Please remember, you should not store bulbs of garlic in the fridge! Cold temperatures can alter the taste.
 

The earth’s deep inhalation begins after the summer solstice and continues through the winter solstice. After expending its internal forces, the earth begins to inhale energy from the cosmos. Traditional “hoedown” storage crops such as sweet potatoes, winter squash, thrive during this inhalation. The slips, or transplants, are established pre-summer solstice, but most of their growth happens as the days get shorter and shorter. The first hard frost ends their growing cycle in SE PA about 8-10 weeks before the winter solstice. Incidentally, both sweet potatoes and winter squash are also cured for storage and should also not be stored in the refrigerator. We have these treats to look forward to in fall.
 
Like perennials, many fruiting annuals like the best of both worlds. Sown in spring, tomatoes, peppers and eggplants like to get their vegetative habit established during the earth’s exhalation and produce their delicious bounty during its inhalation. Tomatoes should be on the share soon! Cucumbers and summer squash are included in this group. Due to the humidity in our region, however, they are more prone to disease, so they never last as long as they can…in theory.
 
Other, shorter day annuals that are grown in spring and fall are more in tune with the lunar cycle. In biodynamics, planetary bodies are also recognized as having an influence on plant growth. There is also an optimal time to sow seeds for plants that you either harvest for the flower, fruit, leaf or root. Luckily, we have the Stella Nutra Calendar to help us with our sowing schedule. More about this next week…
 
Best,
Andrew

It's pesto thyme!

Dear KCSA community,
 
Yes, it is pesto time! This week the basil beds will go on u-pick. Full and partial share members will need to bring their own scissors and containers to harvest.

I think we'll start off with the basil limit at a pound. For reference, the bags of basil you have been receiving in the share these last few weeks have been about a quarter of that.

The best way for members to harvest basil is by cutting the top, leafy rosettes from the plants as this encourages branching and more growth. Another rule of thumb is the less you touch and move through the plants the less you will spread disease throughout the crop. Some disease is inevitable but we want to slow the spread down so we have a prolonged basil harvest and protect those plants that are most at risk!

We have made a real concerted effort to make sure we had a good basil crop this year and we are very pleased with the result. We changed up the spacing and sought specific disease resistant varieties along with our somewhat trusted Elenora variety.

Over the last few years, we have been having some issues where one day the basil looks just fine then the next (usually after a thunderstorm) it is not! June and July have been pretty dry thus far so hopefully we will have a prolonged basil season this year. The new harvesting technique or "pinching" and "bagging" the leafy rosettes has also helped with growth and air circulation.

Thanks,
Andrew

Squish squash.

Dear KCSA community,
 
As we go into the sixth week of harvest, our early summer fruit is setting! In addition to relishing our zucchini, we can also start to relish our summer squash this week as well. As zucchini is technically a summer squash, we will have a total of four types this season: zucchini, zephyr, patty pan and yellow crookneck.
 
The zephyr is quite similar to the zucchini in its shape but generally is harvested a little longer. It is yellow and tapered toward the growing point on the plant with a green blossoming end. The yellow crookneck is similar to the zucchini in size but has a more bulbous end than the zephyr and is completely yellow. It also has a rough skin, similar to some decorative gourds. All our summer squash are edible!!

The patty pan, on the other hand, is out there on its own! It has the distinctive yellow/green coloring of summer squash but is shaped…like a flying saucer! Also known as the scallop squash, patty pans can be used as any other type of squash (you may have to slice it up differently, though). However, the unique shape of the patty pan lends itself to grilling! Flying saucer squash burgers anyone?

You can see a visual identification of our squash is available on our summer squash recipe page.

A few weeks ago, we let our members know that a couple of bluebird fledglings had flown the coup. This was Marylin’s personal birding project on the farm and we were very pleased to have housed some indigenous (but endangered) nesting bluebirds. This week, we have an update on our Purple Martins.
 
Currently, we have a total of 39 fledglings in our colony. The traditional gourds seem to be a little more popular than the new, luxurious T-14 as we have twice as many baby birds in them. But the T-14 is still housing nesting birds and hopefully the concierge has some good advice for our fledglings when they partake on their first flight!

This isn't the final count by a long shot! There are still eggs that could hatch and, unfortunately, there are still plenty of dangers for our fledglings to face before being mature enough to fly all the way back to Brazil.
 
Well that's it for another week! Other than the addition of our summer squash to the share, members should expect a similar box to last week. U-pick strawberries and peas are still producing but growth and vigor have been affected by the wet cold spring. Flowers are in full bloom though! There should be some more additions to u-pick soon.
 
Stay safe,
Andrew