Box 6

collard greens, white onions, basil, bean mix, cilantro, zucchini, bell peppers,
hungarian wax peppers, fennel, celery and dill 

The past 2 weeks since our fifth box have been really wet.  We are by no means complaining as many of the farms in the central Wisconsin area are very dry.  We are again, thankful, that our soil has a high clay content that adds to it's fertile properties and also hangs onto water longer than sandy soil does.  We have yet to spend hours moving hoses. The days have turned into feeling a bit like fall and are starting to get shorter and cooler...which means the tomatoes are going to be coming a bit later, like September.

celery

Many of our crops are doing so well this year and celery is by far the celebrity so far.  Today's harvesting was barely a drop in the bucket of what is in the field coming in future boxes.  This is also a household staple for our family.  It is right up there with peanut butter and raisins :)

purple cauliflower

Every year Arlo browses through the seed catalogs and picks a few favorites out to try new.  This year, purple cauliflower made the cut.  The crop is "slow" compared to standard store bought varieties but also hasn't come to maturity at the same rate to there hasn't been enough ready at once to add to the boxes but we are sure enjoying eating it, a lot!  Our worker share Judith says she feels colorful on the inside when she eats colorful veggies and we feel that paints a great picture of eating fresh foods.

family helper share

We have lots of help on the farm and are always open to having you come out and experience what goes into the boxes and see how your food is growing.  I especially love to see my children growing up on the farm where doing things like washing veggies is a fun thing to do.  Aida takes a lot of pride in her work and is quite serious about her chores and 99% of the times offers to help in a joyful manner.

zucchini flower and baby zucchini below

We heavily rely on pollinators on the farm.  You do to, you absolutely NEED them in order to have food on your table 3 times a day 365 days a year.  We are happy to see many bees, butterflies, birds, moths, wasps, hornets etc...that help our plants blossom into deliciousness.  Be kind to your pollinators please, they do work we can't duplicate.

Hump day!

Well, I suppose today's blog title serves 2 purposes:  we always box on Wednesdays but this is box 5, which means we are at the peak of the hump, and next box will mean we are half way through this growing season.


"Green provider", "yellow wax" and "royal burgundy" more to pick an hour after you finally finish all the rows....

 

Our area in central Wisconsin has been hit twice with heavy hail.  Many people lost their gardens, are getting new roofs as we speak (golden handshake) and are driving around cars with golf ball dents...this happened 7 years ago as well but we were so lucky this time in that our farm didn't have a single piece of hail just only heavenly rain that the field needed very much.  Too bad I was on call for a birth and spent the night in Rapids with our new car...you can imagine how that story ends :) 

white onions freshly picked

 

We have received a few more nice showers here at VG since the hail storms too which means we aren't lugging around hoses and buckets at all except to the raised beds which is expected.  They dry out more quickly then the field and are filled with compost which is great, however, doesn't have the clay content we do in the field.  Reminder:  please tell me not to complain about wet springs.
Usually garlic doesn't like clay.  It also doesn't much like sand but we seem to have created a variety that loves VG soil and does really well without needing any intervention (except planting, weeding and harvesting).   The meat birds are here too!  They moved in about a week ago and we send many thanks to our friends Nami Moon Farms for including us in their most recent order.  They will be ready in about 11 weeks.
Happy hump day and enjoy August!  

VG garlic