Summer continues in full swing for this, our 10th week, and basket, of the season. It’s been in full swing for a while, now – 2018 will definitely be a season to remember – with alternating bouts of drought, gang-buster growth, goings-to-seed and weeds galore – the latter the only true constant in a crazy summer to date. But as I like to say, I’d take 10 seasons like this year’s in exchange for a single rainy one anytime. And the season is nowhere near finished, what with hot nights and days still pushing the high 20s and occasionally still topping 30. That said, here is a small sign of the fall-that-is yet-to-come: today I started sowing some of the root vegetables for your late-season baskets – turnips and radishes of all types, and in the main greenhouse we’ve started sowing our Asian greens – mustards, rapinis and the like. Fall vegetables don’t like the summer heat, so we’ll pray for a reasonable autumn. Meanwhile, we closed out the day harvesting good old-fashioned (i.e. with seeds) watermelons…
Several of you noted the bitterness of our yellow cucumbers, for which we are truly sorry. The explanation is simple: they are a variety that definitely does NOT do well in drier conditions. We mistakenly thought it was only the skin that would suffer, but some of them were bitter to the core. A few rainy days have made all the difference for our latest crop, but we will have learned our lesson: next year, we will be sure to irrigate them well (in summers past, none of our cucurbits ever required extra water). We look forward to seeing you all.
PS: no lettuces this week, they’ve all gone to seed…