This week will most likely be the last that we harvest any summer crops (peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, squash, etc) as we are expecting a frost tonight. While it's a sad day for the plants of summer, our fall/winter crops will love this cool weather- and taste better for it! When temperatures hit below freezing, cold tolerant crops like hearty greens, salad greens, and root crops turn their starches into sugars to lower their freezing point and thus taste sweeter themselves.
We are crossing are fingers that our broccoli will start to come in next week so it will make it into one of the last CSA bags of the season. Broccoli is a little more high maintenance than most other fall crops. The plants need to be spaced 2-3 feet apart and take up a lot more room than spinach, carrots, arugula etc. They need frequent monitoring to make sure there are no pests (aphids, worms) wreaking havoc on the underside of the leaves. And then we fertilize them more for a nice, healthy plant in hopes of a nice, healthy broccoli crown. Last year, we didn't have so much luck with our fall broccoli planting- we got the seedlings in the ground too late and the frosts stunted and slowed their growth significantly. This year, besides battling with aphids, we seem to have a very good crop. Little florets starting forming over the weekend and so now we just wait for them to grow a little more and we'll begin the harvest!
Seth and I are very excited about making home made broccoli and cheese soup. We haven't had broccoli since last spring and have been dreaming for weeks now of all the ways we can cook it when we finally have it. I think one of the benefits of seasonal eating is that by the time you've eaten a vegetable for several weeks or months in a row and just about ready to ban it from your diet, the vegetable's season is over (thank goodness- one can only eat so much roasted okra) and a new vegetable comes into your kitchen and livens things up. Just like okra or squash or arugula, I'm sure after a few weeks, we will have had our fix of broccoli and then it's onto the next vegetable that we eat constantly for a given period of time.
Little Broccoli Floret
Nasty little aphids on the underside of a broccoli leaf. These tiny bugs that can do a lot of damage. Fortunately we caught them early and they didn't do nearly the damage they could have.
Enjoying the beauty of the flowers before it gets too cold.
This variety of sunflower is called "Autumn Beauty"- SO gorgeous
A busy bee hard at work
