Unfinished Business

Well, now it's fall and the season is winding down around here. That fall lettuce and all of those successions of baby leeks and scallions never had a chance to find their way into the ground with all of the crappy weather around here. So I'm left with some tiny amounts of baby fennel, baby leeks and a 50 foot bed of purple scallions. Well, and a couple hundred (or more) lb. of garlic left to clean and most of my onions yet to sell.

So, ok, plenty of work yet to do.

Plus, I've got a line on a cultivating tractor...might be picking it up next week. And I need to buy that hoop house to get my tomatoes in the ground earlier. And the chicken coop still needs finishing.

On second thought, nothing is winding down anywhere. Hopefully I can get all of this done before next season.

Heirloom Tomatoes, R.I.P. 2007-2007

Sigh.

Today marks the end of my favorite time of year. Tomato season.

It seems like barely a month and a week ago I was all atwitter over the first salable fruits of the season. And now they're all gone. Well, no, that would be kind of creepy...if after a hard frost they all just disappeared. They're actually still there...they've just become saggy, baggy, gooshy sacs of seeds and glop.

The funny part is, although I probably sold in the neighborhood of 1,500 pounds of tomatoes this year, I hardly had a chance to eat any myself. I bet I had maybe 3 or 4 BLTs all summer. But that's what I get for refusing to look for a hired hand last spring. 16 hour harvest days and no time to eat anything but cold toaster waffles for supper.

Oh well, luckily I stashed a few of the last remaining ripening Carbons, Sara Blacks and Gold Medals. Maybe I'll make one of my favorite BBTs.

And next year's tomato season might come about a month earlier. We're getting a big ole hoop house.

So anyway...who's for garlic?

Flood Relief for Wisconsin/Minnesota Farmers

This is a short video detailing some the destruction done to several small organic farms in our area during recent heavy rains and flooding. Please scratch out a check, type in your CC number or just pass this video along to as many people as you can.

Thanks
Pat



http://www.sowtheseedsfund.org/

Rain.

"Hey man, take a look out the window 'n' see what's happ'nin'
Hey man, it's rainin'"
-Jimi Hendrix, "Rainy Day, Dream Away"

I hate to complain about the rain (that falls mainly on the plain). Seeing as I find myself complaining about the general lack of rain often enough. But I find I'm quite adept at complaining about pretty much anything.

I would prefer it to be a bit drier now that it's tomato season. This rainy business creates a breeding ground for blight and fungi (which I like to refer to as "blungi"). And, long story short, that ain't no good for the tomatoes.

Yeah sure, it helps them grow and whatever. But it doesn't exactly help their flavor. It kinda makes them taste a bit watered down. So, in an attempt to remedy that, I've been harvesting them at their first blush of color and letting them ripen on a newspaper-covered table. Seems to help. And they're still better than Red Round Hybrid #370XX4Z. In my relatively biased opinion.

Per usual, I'm already thinking ahead to next season, when I will grow a small percentage of my tomatoes in a hoop house. This will help me get ripe tomatoes earlier, offer tomatoes later and allow me to control the weather conditions a little better.

Everyone has heirlooms in mid-August. Only a few people have them in late-July. Almost nobody has them in mid-July.

And I want to be one of those almost-nobodies.

Oh Yeah, That Blog.

Everywhere I go, people ask me: Where has the blog gone?

Well, it's been a busy week around here this week. Little Conlan fell (jumped?) off of the hay wagon last Sunday morning and broke his leg. He's fine, or at least as fine as one can be with a broken leg, but he's required a lot more attention. This is also his first prolonged exposure to television. Sigh. I guess I knew I couldn't keep him away from it forever...

The tomatoes are really starting to pop. I expect to have at least 50 lb. of first-quality available for Tuesday (hopefully more), and perhaps as many as 30-40 lb. of seconds available as well. I expect to have close to 200 lb. available per week when they really start hitting.

The Leg Incident has really cut into my garlic cleaning time, but I'll clean it to order if nothing else. Right now, it's still rocamboles (Killarney, Korean, Chesnok), but I'll start in on the porcelains next week.

Finally.

Okay, everyone stop panicking. I harvested a few tomatoes today. Soon, the floodgates will...drop? What do floodgates do, do they drop?

Anyway, soon there will be a lot of tomatoes. The ever reliable and delicious Black Prince provided me with not one, but two beauties. One promptly became the T in BBT. (Basil instead of lettuce...arugula works well, too. That's a BAT.) I also found one of my new varieties, Purple Price, a couple Tigerellas and a few different cherries.

I've made my peace with the tomatoes. We're cool now.

Mad at My Tomatoes

Usually mad ABOUT my tomatoes. (80-some varieties, yadda yadda yadda) But not this time.

I'm a bit...disappointed in them right now. I feel they aren't quite living up to their potential. Today was the day. The day they were going to be ready to ship. But outside of maybe 2 dozen Black Cherries and one nearly-ripened Black Prince, I got squat.

I know by next Monday I'll have 20 or 30 lb. ready to ship. And by next Thursday I'll have hundreds of pounds of every imaginable color, shape, size and flavor of tomato ripe and ready to eat.

But I wanted them now.

Oh well, that Black Prince has already been earmarked for a bacon, basil and tomato sammy for Friday's lunch. That'll make me feel better.