September is here...

And that means the garden has begun its last desperate attempts to throw everything it has into seed production in the hopes of producing offspring for next year (read 'seeds'). That's good for us as humans since seeds come in nice little packages called fruits and vegetables. Yum.
One of the benefits of this lifestyle is low grocery bills. And here's why. We've been canning up a storm to get ready for winter. Lizzie loves to help in the kitchen. She helped me peel potatoes, wash carrots and peel beets this week. What a trooper!!!

This week's harvest was another record on the Sun Gold Tomatoes. Each of our share members received about 8 lbs of tomatoes this week. To put that into perspective, you just spent a little under 10% of your budget at the farmers market if you took your share purchase price and went to the market all summer instead. Good deal!!! Of that 8 lbs about one pound is Sun Gold Tomato. Enjoy!!!

Speaking of records...this is what 153lbs of tomatoes looks like before we break it into individual share amounts. Pretty impressive! Well done greenhouse tomato plants.

And...the heirlooms are finally here. This week we picked in enough quantity to put them into the shares. We have simply added up the total and started filling bags so you'll likely get a miscellaneous mixture of some of these types of tomatoes. To read some of my thoughts on heirlooms please visit one of our archive pages from last summer. I love them (that's the short version).

More carrots!!!

This week also marks another 'first'. Both for you the member and me the farmer. As you know I trial new varieties every year. One of them this year is this pole bean. Cherokee Trail of Tears is the name of the bean and it's truly the most wonderful taste I've ever experienced in a pole bean. I will definitely be growing these from here on out. I tried one in the garden today and nearly fell over. It stopped me in my tracks. I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.

If you're interested in learning more about this see you can visit the website of the company from which I purchased it. http://rareseeds.com/ (Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds).

OK, so I was harvesting carrots the other day in the rain and Emily, Lizzie, Kate and Maeve (my sister-in-law and niece) came out to the garden for a visit/breather for the kids/photo shoot. I pulled this amazing Danvers carrot just before they got out there. I couldn't resist showing it off. I've never seen a Danvers get this big. I'm going to save it and replant it next year and see if I can get it to produce similar offspring. I have about 9 beds of carrots left and hopefully I'll find another one or three of similar size. I may enter it into the Common Ground Fair Exhibition Hall.
Have a great weekend!