Welcome to our 11th Harvest Week

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In Farm News this week, Farmer John Writes about Our Acre(s)

Your Box
The swap box at your delivery site serves as a trading place–you leave an item in the swap box that you don’t care for and swap it for something that you’d prefer. Remember to give others the chance to reap any bounties, too!

Be sure to use the check-off sheets when picking up your shares! This helps your host and us to identify any orphan boxes.

If you’re unable to pick up your box one week, we ask that you arrange to have someone else pick up for you. Make sure to forward your pickup instructions to that person, so he or she doesn’t return with a fruit box or a swap box instead of a vegetable box…yup, this happens.

For Flex Share folks–we can make changes to your Flex schedule. However, we  ask that you give us 2 weeks notice in order to make the change on time.

For Full and Half Share folks–when it’s not possible to find someone to pick up for you, we can hold back your box that week. We ask for a 2 week advance notice on this. We can make this box up to you during a future delivery, but it will need to be for your scheduled pick up day/week.

For Half Shares–we cannot alternate your pick up week from your originally scheduled dates.

The Crops

Amongst numerous other items, Garlic, tomatoes, cilantro, and peppers will be in your box this week…a nice combination.

Cucumbers and zucchini/summer squash are done, as is typical for this time of year.

Melons are finished. They started out great, but the incessant rains made it a mediocre year for melons.

This is the last week of sweet corn — the corn crop was beyond fabulous.

Broccoli is coming on this week — earlier than usual.

Potatoes and winter squash will soon by in your box.

The Weather
The weather continues to be strangely cool.

The Work
Last week, I described how our onion tumbler pops the onions out of the ground and lays them in windrows for curing. After they cure in the summer air (typically a 2 – 5 day process) we pick them up with our onion harvester, which tops the stalks with whirring knives, and elevates them into wooden cribs. When things go right, which they did this past Thursday, 3 of us can harvest in 2 hours what it would probably take 20 people a day or so to harvest by hand.

Our Acre(s)
Former growing manager Bob Bower bought the onion harvester at the same auction where he bought the onion tumbler. It was built for large scale onion production in the 60’s. Like most commercial vegetable equipment built then, it is woefully undersized and obsolete for today’s commercial production of onions. When Bob was bidding on it, the farmer next to him asked, “how many acres of onions do you grow?” Bob said, “between 1 and 2.” The farmer said, “between 1 and 2 hundred?” Bob didn’t answer him.  Bob told me later, “I figured I’d just let him think whatever he wanted.”

We grow between 1 and 2 acres of onions.

Then we stack the onion cribs to form an air tunnel, and blow air through it for a couple of weeks. Then we refrigerate them until they go into your box. (A few of these storage onions, especially the red ones which have a shorter shelf life, bypass the tunnel and go into your box fresh from the field.)

U-Pick Garden
Our U-Pick Garden is coming on, with lots of flowers available now, and a few green beans.

More from Shareholders
Visit us often at www.facebook.com/angelicorganics, where we post exciting farm developments regularly, and shareholders post recipes, tips, and photos.

Box Contents
Please Note: this summary is written before you receive your box—please be aware that some guesswork is involved. As always, be sure to thoroughly wash all of your vegetables.

Lettuce
Kale
A Carrot
Celery
An Onion
Garlic
Eggplant
Peppers
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Sweet Corn
Tomatoes
Cilantro

Warmly,
Farmer John