Farmer Matthew's Field Notes

While I am working on this week's email, I am sitting in the farm store looking over all the produce that we have available for our members. I am so grateful for how God has provided for the farm this year even with drought that we have been experiencing. The amount of each crop we have available and the number of different of varieties of crops we have available this year is truly remarkable. I am so excited to be able to share these crops with you.

This week we have been pushing hard to be prepared for a good portion of the crew to be gone again. Next week 2 of the 3 field crew guys will be gone and the follow week all the field crew help will be gone. Fortunately, it is all planned time off so we have been working ahead as much as possible, so that I will not be overwhelmed with work while they are gone.

The potato harvest has started in earnest this week in anticipation of the crew's absence. We have dug up around 500 feet of potato beds, which has yielded around 500 pounds of potatoes. That is a fair amount of potatoes to get out of the ground and processed. I have been extremely happy with the overall size and yields from the potatoes this year. The ground conditions have been almost perfect for digging them this year as well. I think that we are far enough ahead on the potato harvest that the rest of the potatoes can be "stored" in the ground until the crew gets back.

If I were to encourage you to stock up on something this week, it would be the green beans. The bean plants are in full production right now. We are getting around 20lbs of beans a day. This has been the best crop of beans we have had since we starting farming. So please enjoy the beans while they are in their prime.

I have been waiting to transplant the fall cabbages and brussel sprouts. The heat and dryness are not very conducive to a transplant surviving for very long. I am hoping to get them in the ground soon, but at this point it is dependent on the weather. As with everything else with the farm, I am trusting the timing of this to God. The winter squash plants are producing a lot of squash and the squash are getting to be a nice size. The sweet potatoes are starting to spread out or vine out now. I am hoping that we have a late frost this year to give them as much time as possible this year. The other fall crops will start getting planted in the next couple of weeks.

Thank you for your support; we could not do this without all of you.