Archive for the ‘Fruit and Vegetables’ category

preparing portions

September 5th, 2010

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A new venture this year for me is preparing portions of produce for members of the garden.  The model is based on Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).

I was not sure how many members I could handle so started with a small number.  I’ve been enjoying this way of selling my produce and think next year I’ll add more members.  This might mean I would no longer attend the Farmers’ market.

With the small number of members and attending a new less established Thursday evening market I often have extra produce in the week. For this I tried to setup an online store to sell what is left over.  This concept has not worked overly well.  Distribution and limited storage life are two of the biggest hurdles so far with the online store.

As everything is still about the learning curve I think it is good to try new ideas in hopes of finding the right system that works for me and those interested in my produce.

Eggplants and Tomatoes

September 2nd, 2009

Hansel Eggplants

Last week I had what I would consider a great harvest of the Hansel variety of eggplant.  Unfortunately through my inexperience it looks like I have let a lot of my plants get to dry and several of the eggplants for this week have been affected.  Hopefully by the time I harvest them there will be a little rebound, just over half of the plants right now are still good, the other half may not make it.  I’m not sure why that is it must have something to do with where they are placed in the garden since they have all been getting the same amount of moisture.

green tomatoes

I know I and a few other people have been waiting a while to pick some ripe tomatoes.  The only thing about all the green tomatoes is it sounds like I’m not the only one that is struggling with field ripening this year.

Summer Squash Harvest

September 2nd, 2009

summer squash bounty

Here is a collection of the ‘patty pan’ summer squashes that have been grown in abundance in this years garden.  A couple of weeks ago we had a full 3 inches of rain which I believe brought upon ‘blossom end rot’ to the squash plot.  Most of the patty pans actually fared pretty well through this, a lot better then the zucchini.  The variety of colours and shapes make for some wondering stares while on display at the farmers’ market.  And with names like the starship and flying saucer how can you go wrong.