Tomatoes: the silver lining

This won't be the first time that I comment on the challenges of this season, but as we gear up for hurricane season and prepare for another 20-90mm (some projections say only 5-10mm, so let's hope for that) of rain over the next two days, it's becoming difficult to keep up with the work and stay positive. Not to be too doom and gloom, but we're definitely feeling the prolonged impacts of all the rain and moisture. For example, lettuce, typically one of our highest yielding and most profitable crops, is almost totally rotten and we're just scraping by with enough for y'all, our CSA members. Our fall brassicas have succumb to disease and our hot crops (peppers and eggplants) are still recovering from being underwater and then exposed to extreme heat. It doesn't feel great to have such limited diversity during what is typically our most abundant time of year, but alas, that's the way it is this year. Ayayay.

So what's going well? Our tomatoes are thriving and amazingly disease-free. We harvested ~150 pints of cherry tomatoes last week and were able to move them all through CSA, market and wholesale accounts which felt great! Our new deer fence has done it's job and kept the critters out of our squash patch. The pole bean trial also seems to be a win. We're trying to move away from bush beans which are tedious to harvest and move towards pole beans which can be picked upright. They're tied up with a DIY trellis this year and we look forward to investing in better infrastructure next year because they are so much more pleasant to harvest! And also incredibly abundant! Be sure to load up on tomatoes and beans in the coming weeks because they are absolutely thriving compared to everything else. Our first honey extraction was also a success! We harvested ~80lb of sweet, sweet summer honey and will bottle it while the rain pours down tomorrow. It'll be available in our store soon!

Things are feeling a little low, but hopefully we can overcome this lull sooner than later. The final planting of lettuce went in the ground last week and we're nearing the end of this year's field plantings. It feels good to be coming to the end of this phase so that we can focus on harvesting, tidying up the weeds, and prepping next year's bed. I'm also taking the weekend off the farm this week and look forward to enjoying some nice summer weather!

We're trying not to let it get to us and appreciate the support from our community, customers, and the solidarity with our fellow farmers who are also struggling.

How to enjoy all the tomatoes:

• BLT - so classic, so easy!

• fresh salsa

• really tasty pasta with cherry tomatoes and sausage

• Try this remix of tomato toast - pan con tomate

Autumnal themed bouquets went out today and looked pretty cute!