This week’s harvest: kale, chard, broccoli, beets, carrots, white onions, cucumbers, beans, basil, parsley, cabbage, cauliflower, peppers, eggplant

U pick: outdoor tomatoes, kale, chard, flowers, dill, parsley, basil

Come on heat! After a summer full of colder-than-normal nights and a mid-season hail, our outdoor tomatoes, cucumbers, and winter squash need all the help they can get! Coming from the East coast we’re still astounded at how long it takes for heat loving plants to come to maturity here.  Talking shop with another farmer at market we learned that he counts on 3 natural disasters a year, be it an early or late frost, drought, bugs, disease, hard rain, hail, or wind. This spring a dust devil took off with his hoop house!

We have mixed feelings about making a living farming in such a harsh climate, but we do enjoy the challenge of figuring it out. Successes are that much sweeter and inevitable failures require tough skin. For us, this is the time of year when it really hurts not to have those outdoor tomatoes. If you haven’t noticed yet, we’re a bit tomato obsessed – unfortunately for us our favorite crop is also the hardest one to grow in Durango. Between the 2 plots, we planted 4,000 saucing and cherry tomatoes outside for you and for farm-to-school. It breaks our hearts to know all those kids are eating tasteless tomatoes off the truck rather than Sun Golds! As the early tunnel tomatoes disappear, it has become harder for us to accept the loss. We would have had enough saucing tomatoes for everyone to take home a box!

But, there’s so much that went well this season. The colder weather has been particularly kind to the brassicas: we have giant heads of broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower. We also figured out an environmentally friendly way to heat the hoophouses resulting in early tomatoes; a technique we will use into the future for other crops (lets not kid ourselves, likely more tunnels for more tomatoes!).

We’ve heard from many of you that the harvest is overwhelming, but enjoy it while it lasts. Now’s your chance to chop and freeze up everything… kale, squash, chard, broccoli and all the extra u-pick items.  After blanching and chopping kale you’d be amazed how much you can fit in a freezer bag. Yes it takes a bit of time to pick a few bundles but come winter that time invested is well worth it to enjoy kale soups and stir-fries in February.  Go out to the farm and pick huge bouquets, extra basil and parsley for pesto, and pickle up those beets. We’ve been drying summer squash to make chips (cumin flavored is our favorite) and already ate the transparent apple chips. Fortunately we’ll be picking lots of apples and pears in the coming weeks and can replace the supply!

Thanks for sharing the farm with us.

Linley, Pete, Reid