THE HALFWAY POINT
Variety is the spice of life. Trying new things keeps life interesting. In the depths of winter, as we mull over our seed list, we contemplate every variety we plan to grow in the coming season. We consider the previous year’s results, we take into account what other farmers recommend and also keep in mind how we can keep things new and changing for our members.
This time of year, we start taking tomatoes to market and we have more varieties than your average garden. Especially this year, being we received hundreds of replacement plants from other farms back in May. Folks who are “tomato connoisseurs” always ask for information about each of the varieties and we heartily explain each one. They know that some are sweeter, some are less acidic, others have very few seeds, some are better for saucing, juicing, the list goes on. In all, there are about 45 different tomato varieties growing here today. Nearly every one is open-pollinated, which means we will save to seeds from our favorites for replanting next year.
Variety was also the hot topic between farmers during the field walk this past weekend. Sunday, we hosted an impromptu lunch and afternoon of socializing with three other local CSA farms. We spent time walking thru the fields and going over each section variety by variety. We shared our own experiences and tips for success or stories of failures all the while jotting down mental notes of variety names and conjuring up our spreadsheet of seeds and rattling off the seed’s sources. The difficult part was getting eight CSA farmers to stop working and just relax!
As our share season marks the half way point, hopefully you have tried a few new varieties of vegetables from our farm. Asian greens? Arugula? Patty pan squash? Hopefully you have added some variety to your meals the past few months. More variety, means more nutrition and healthier you. Even after 12 years of cooking together, this week we discovered zucchini noodles and could not believe how tasty they were! There are always new things to learn and new things to try, the spice of life.
Heading downhill from here,
Eric & Rebecca