Lida Farm

Close, Ryan.

I love this time of year. I love the cool mornings. As I sit here in my living room drinking hot coffee, I feel the cold air seep through the window. The cool damp of the morning will give way again to sunny, warm afternoons. All those crops we waited for so long for start to mature. Tomatoes turn in the same way the sumac turns its own brilliant red this time of year as the day and night temperatures diverge. Some crops still hold out. Hey peppers, when will you start to turn colors?

I also love that I can see the end of the line this time of year. At the beginning of the CSA season, I never think about the number of weeks because it’s like thinking about how tall Everest is when you first set off from basecamp. The trek seems so long that I just might reconsider taking on the quest. But, now, there are only 4 weeks after today’s delivery. AND Maree and I are going to sitting in some hot springs in Montana the first week of October, so I have a goal to motivate me!

In between now and me going on vacation, there’s still effort on a number of fronts. Yes, we’ll have to expend a lot of energy to pull in some big crops still in the field: winter squash, russets, rutabagas, and a lot ripening tomatoes. But I also have a little final push to help put on the Deep Roots Festival on Sept 14th and also this ‘little’ project of raising funds and doing construction to expand Manna Food Co-op, which has become something of another part-time job.

But in all of these examples, I’m not alone. I do have the support of others to carry some weight, and, in all things, this is all we can hope for. Good things we can work on together which feed and improve this one world and one life we have.

In the box:

• Tomatoes
• Cherry tomatoes
• Green pepper
• Colored pepper: I had to hunt to find this mix of peppers with color. Most are Italia, which are long green-red. These are sweet.
• Anaheim peppers: Small, light-green peppers. Do have heat!
• Watermelon
• Cantaloupe
• Yellow potatoes
• Red onions
• Radishes
• A couple ears of sweet corn: Yes, it’s the end of the line. Miso ate the rest.
• Salad mix
• Eggplant

Sometimes those closest to us are our worst enemies. Betrayal is difficult to handle, but especially when done by our own family members. I hate to write about this – seems almost like I’m airing some dirty laundry about Lida Farm – but I can’t keep this to myself. It’s just too emotionally distressing to hold in, trust broken.

Whenever sweet corn stalks are busted down and cobs are torn off, the usual suspects have masks and do their work at night – racoons.

At first sight of the husks thrown all over the farm, I suspected these little robbers myself. But I didn’t suspect Miso, the family dog! Clearly addicted to the sweet smell of the cob, he can’t last even a half day without his fix. It’s sad, really, what he’s come to, stealing from his own family to feed his habit.

In the box:

• Watermelon: These varieties are very hard to tell apart this year….maybe pink, yellow, or orange. Any should be good.
• Montauk Sweet Corn: This is our longest-season corn (81 days). I think the best.
• Yellow Beans
• Radishes
• Salad Mix
• Garlic
• Sweet onions
• Tomatoes
• Green Pepper
• A Couple Poblano Peppers – These have heat. They are the dark, dark green ones.
• Cantaloupe

I’ve had about a dozen people contact me in the last week and ask, “My tomatoes are all green, can you sell me a bushel?” And my answer has been, “I’m in the same boat – the only difference is I have more green tomatoes.”

The slicing tomatoes are in this week’s box, but this is the seasonal waiting game and this season is a lot more waiting than we are used to. The last few years have been nothing but hot and dry, and, now, here we are living under a rain cloud. The hot season vegetables do not like this and are waiting for some sun. I’m also waiting for some heat to finally dry out the field where I need to get some spinach planted, which should have been in the ground like 10 days ago. I’ve never experienced such a wet August in my time doing this farm thing.

Waiting isn’t all bad. It does teach us that we must live at nature’s pace and that the world isn’t run on our expectations. This is why I’ve given up on planting schedules as if on the 10th of June everything will be perfect for me to put in Brussels Sprouts. I know when they need to get in generally, and, that’s good enough because I’ll be waiting for a window of good conditions anyway. The expectations set by exact days only set myself up for frustrations and worry and whole lot of going against the grain.

So, let’s go with the flow of the season. Yes, it’s cooler and wetter than normal-which gives us Midwesterners weather to complain about-but next year may be just the opposite. May we take the season as it comes and celebrate our being here in this one, right now.

In the box:

• Watermelon: We have three varieties which are all mixed up, so it’s a luck of the draw whether your melon is pink, yellow, or orange.
• Tomatoes
• Sweet corn
• Green onions
• Green beans
• Purple and green pepper
• Shishito peppers: A Japanese thing – typically fried at a high heat – see https://themodernproper.com/shishito-peppers
• Garlic

Growing a lot of varieties of produce, each year is a puzzle. Some pieces like brussels sprouts stick around forever – until the bitter end of the season really as one of the last crops in the field – whereas others make a quick appearance, and, poof, they’re gone. Think of a radish crop. Some are harvested over and over like kale and others like kohlrabi are a one and done, so this puzzle of a season gets complicated as we clear beds and plant new ones over 5 months.

For me, when I’m running out of time like in August, clearing some crops takes enough effort that I dread doing them. One this time of year is garlic. It all gets harvested at once and it typically takes more time than I like. We also can have challenges with the heads not coming out of the ground well if they are too mature and the stems break off. So, I was super stoked when some nearby beginning farmers from Wadena came by together with our own Emily Reno and volunteered to make something happen. “What do you think about harvesting garlic?” was the first thing out of my mouth. The easiest garlic harvest ever – and with massive heads and good timing – one of the best! Thanks to Brittney, Nona, Luna, and Emily 🙂

In the box:

• Purple cabbage
• Allure sweet corn
• Alisa Craig sweet onions
• Satina yellow potatoes
• Kale: I’ve not made this, but I can see it really working with the potatoes and using the sweet onions in the box (substitute for green onions – ok to use onion greens) – https://withfoodandlove.com/kale-potato-salad/
• Tomato mix:
• Green pepper
• Islander purple pepper: This is a deceiving pepper. It’s purple but tastes like a green. Some elect to use in a salad to retain its color since it will lose the purple if cooked.
• Beets: I wish there were more and bigger, but these guys have been struggling a bit.
• A cucumber or two: Sorry , I know that these have been in the last 5 boxes, but the cukes are going strong and it’s a staple.

I wish I had weed-free fields. I especially feel this way when I’m out there harvesting something like carrots. Wow, harvest would be 400% easier if I only got to handweed these things about 3 weeks ago!

That’s why it’s tough to drive by some immaculate weed-free garden. I turn my head. “Man, good work,” I say to myself. But I get garden envy. Think about what it would be like if things were that clean and clear. But then I start to rationalize the miracle. Well, that garden is super small compared to what you got going, Ryan. I’m sure that guy is retired and has all the time in the world to take care of that 20 x 30 plot.

But then I visited Food Farm by Duluth. They have 200-foot beds of carrots with nothing but carrot tops – I didn’t see a weed. Onions weed free and a lush green. These guys grow like 16 acres of vegetables at this quality and I can’t even see parts of the rutabaga patch! And I grow less than 4 acres…what gives?

Garden envy is real. You might not have it with vegetable plots like me, but I’ve known many a homeowner who salivates over those garden coffeetable books where someone built out a manicured Japanese garden in the backyard in Cleveland complete with a Koi pond and awesome custom-built bridge. Or maybe some outdoor kitchen with brick pizza oven to one side of a cedar arbor and cobblestone patio.

Garden envy, however, can be a powerful motivator as long as you get out of the pipe-dream stage. I have not yet build my own Japanese garden on the hillside near our side deck (although I have had this dream), but I have tried improvements on the farm based on others. For example, this year we’re growing onions in clusters of 3-4 onions on landscape fabric, inspired by Food Farm who grew on a plastic mulch. Onions are notoriously weeds since they don’t throw much shade. So far, I’m impressed how much the much is keeping them clean, but the jury is still out whether these onions will get to a good size. Hmm. Let’s keep trying.

In the box:

• Sweet Corn: Trinity, our earliest variety.
• Carrots
• Beets
• Sweet onions
• Yellow potatoes
• Cilantro
• Fresh dill
• Cherry tomatoes
• Daikon radish
• Green pepper