Bay Ridge CSA

News from the farm – part 6

Apologies for the lack of an email detailing the farm share last week – as we’ve mentioned before, the farm really don’t know what’s going to be in the share until the moment they harvest it. Usually they have a pretty good idea of what will be in each share ahead of time, but this week they still weren’t sure of what would be in each of the CSA shares they provide, since there are a lot of different things growing on the farm right now. Hopefully we’ll have more advance news next week!

Anyway, news from Benjamin and the Hearty Roots team below:

Featured vegetable: Onions

This week you’ve seen the first of the onions. The variety that “bulbs up” first is called Sierra Blanca, and it’s a white, sweet onion that’s good for fresh eating, but that won’t store long-term like yellow onions. You may have heard of Walla Walla onions from the northwest; these are very similar. They are juicy and have high sugar content, and less of the pungent, tear-jerking aroma and flavor that is associated with most onions. Some people eat these white onions like apples! We are giving them to you with the tops still attached, which you can use like scallions.

We also have some red onions and storage onions growing. This year we have had some trouble with onion thrips, very very tiny insects that live in down in the “growing point” of the onions, where the new leaves emerge. The thrips feed on the small growing leaves, causing white streaks on the onions green tops and making it harder for the onions to hydrate themselves. This means that the onions need more water, which as you know, was in short supply over the month. Some of our onions weren’t too happy about that, but now they seem to be recovering pretty well. We noticed that the onions that we planted on plastic mulch have been healthier than those planted on bare ground; perhaps because the mulch holds moisture in the soil better.

News from the fields

We were very relieved to get nearly an inch and a half of rain on Saturday morning! That’s about as much rain as we had in all of the previous 7 weeks combined. The plants had a big jump in growth as all of the soil was suddenly saturated for the first time in a while. The weeds, of course, had a jump too, so we are busy trying to take care of those.

The somewhat milder temperatures have also been a relief, getting through last week’s heat wave feels like an accomplishment. Seedlings that we plant are much happier as well, no longer wilting right after they go into the ground. This week we are transplanting fall cabbage, lettuce, fennel, and melons, as well as seeding fall beets, carrots and greens.

Tags: farm share, onions, rain