Hello all,
We are excited to say that last week has been a busy and productive week at Pekarek’s Produce. With the warm weather and sun (most days) everything has been growing like gangbusters. We are also happy to say that your produce bags are nice and full.
The farm is in full swing by June with harvesting crops, planting new crops, and weeding – not to mention other maintenance activities. One question we often get on the farm is what variety of a certain vegetable do we plant and when do we plant. While there are certain things that are pretty standard, like planting kohlrabi and radishes in the spring and fall, most of our plantings occur many, many times. The same piece of ground may have green onions in the spring and then have fall beets. And when it comes to variety selection, the process occurs all year, takes weeks to prepare and then order and rarely includes any less than three varieties of each vegetable!
As for a weather update, we have estimated that our farm has received 17+ inches of rainfall since April 1, a significant portion of that falling sideways and some of it bringing pea-sized hail along with it. While this has caused washouts, a few small crop losses, and stunted growth for certain vegetables, it has also put some crops further ahead than they would typically be at this time of year. All-in-all, the farm is doing excellent and been very fortunate!
Finally, we will again be inviting all of our CSA members out to the farm for a tour this year. Even if you made it to last year’s tour, there have been a lot of changes. Plants are in different locations, we have new strawberries in the field, we have one new greenhouse on the farm and have moved a high tunnel over to our location. It may not even look like the same place! The date is not set for the tour yet, but look for more information in next week’s newsletter.
Do you have a vegetable you’ve never eaten in your bag? Not sure what to do with kohlrabi? Maybe you’ve never had a beet in your grown-up life? Check out pekareksproduce.wordpress.com for recipes on all of these vegetables and more. And if you have a recipe you’d like to share, let us know – we’ll put the recipe up on the blog!
Your Farmers,
Ryan, Katie, and Crew