Distribution #15, Week of September 4th

The News from Windflower Farm

What you’ll get this week

• Tomatoes
• Peppers
• Potatoes
• Oakleaf lettuce
• Arugula
• Mixed kales
• Parsley
• Bicolor sweet corn
• Squash

Your fruit share will be Pennsylvania peaches, the last of the stone fruits for this year, complements of Yonder Farm. Next week, we’ll send Pete’s apples.

News from the farm

August’s September-like weather has given way to September’s August-like weather. Sweaters have gone back on the hook and broad brimmed hats have again come out. The 2023 growing season continues to amaze with its meteorological roller coaster.

Field corn and soybean fields here seem to have gone off in one of two directions this year: they are either stellar or sad. Well-drained fields with ample nitrogen are on target to be very high yielding. But in poorly drained fields, crops are spindly, yellow and uneven. The exact locations of tile drainage lines can be discerned from the road. Corn growth is wavy, with tall, green, robust plants growing where the tiles are, and yellow, short and anemic plants growing in the in-between spaces. Unevenness can be seen in our last sweet corn field. The second planting went in just prior to a nitrogen-leaching rain, and the third planting went in during a drier stretch of weather. As a result, the size of the ears in the third planting will be much bigger. The good news is that size and flavor seem to be unrelated.  

Candelaria has made tamales for us, using a recipe that was her mother’s and her mother’s before that. She is a fabulous cook and knows that I love almost everything she does in her kitchen. I will take some tamales with me during my drive to the city tomorrow. I’ve come to consider my Tuesday delivery route to be something like a working vacation: a cooler full of good food, wonderful people to interact with, an excellent book on tape or good music to entertain me, a picture-window view, air conditioning and not a single important decision to make.  

Nate has put together an Instagram posting showing how we grow and harvest potatoes here. He’ll post it in the next day or two. We’ll send potatoes again in a couple of weeks, along with Rosemary. But it’s still summer for now, and more eggplant, summer squash and corn will be coming, along with peppers, tomatoes and salad greens.

Take care, Ted