July brings bounty to the farm. There’s new fruit for snacking, including two sour cherries trees that are ripe! Find the cherry trees by walking beyond the flower area towards the Taylor Park Road. They are on the small hill before reaching the park road fence. Both trees have ripe fruit, the upper tree is a deeper red color than the lower tree. Sweet cherries are not grown this far north but there are a handful of tart cherry varieties that can be grown. Fun fact: apparently sour cherries actually have more naturally occurring sugars in them than their sweet counterparts but with all the other flavor compounds present they come across as more sour. There’s currants available now also. When looking from the parking lots, they are beyond the end of Irene’s field to the right/south of the greenhouse.
The pink currants are ripe now and this is what they look like. The black are ripe too. The red are nearly ripe. The white looks translucent green and is last.
You’ve probably noticed if you’ve been pulling it regularly, but the garlic is finally full sized! The next 10 days or so are when the plants leaves senesce which results in the wrapper leaves beginning to dry down. Enjoy the fresh stuff in the same spot by the greenhouse and mid-month we’ll begin pulling the main crop in the Dutchess field. You’ll be invited to participate in the garlic harvest then. Mark your calendars for picking up your own share of the bulk garlic (up to 50 per share) sometime July 16-21st. We’ll send a garlic specific email closer to that date.
To coincide with garlic harvest we are moving the July Garden morning and potluck one week sooner. It’s regularly the final Saturday of each month, but instead it’ll be July 19th. The entire community is invited to participate in the garlic harvest and we’d happily send you home with many bulbs.
The garlic bulbs are full size now and differentiated into cloves. The wrapper leaves will start to dry down now.
Koral the intern has been having a memorable summer. Read about the new connections she is making at her new blog post here.
Crops Available
* marks new this week
- Basil
- Cilantro
- Currants* (pink, red, white, and black)
- Dill
- Garlic
- Garlic scapes (in small fridge)
- Gooseberries*
- Head lettuce
- Kale, curly and lacinato/dino
- Leaf fennel
- Lemon verbena*
- Mint
- Mixed lettuce greens
- Oregano
- Rainbow chard
- Thyme
- Tulsi holy basil
- Rosemary
- Scallions*
- Blooming flowers: Celosia, cleome, false sunflower, daisies, evening primrose, globeflower, gomphrena, hollyhock, lilies, marshmallow, salvia, red hot poker, yarrow.
- The earliest flowers in the gardens are the perennials that survive from year to year. There are lesser quantities of these as compared to the annual flowers which are getting established now. Shareholders are welcome to harvest anything you see in the landscape (unless marked otherwise if we are saving for seed). Wandering in these beds each week will reveal new surprises.
