Broadsheet #13
what's in your share / what's in season
fruit tomatoes
('Sub-Arctic Plenty', 'Black Krim', 'Hawaiian Pineapple', 'Kellogg's Breakfast',
'Ruth's Perfect Red', 'Aunt Ruby's German Green', & 'Thessaloniki')
fruit cherry tomatoes
('Lollipop', 'Sweetie', 'Pearly Pink', 'Sungold Select X', & 'Black Cherry')
fruit salad tomatoes
('Imur Prior Beta', 'Bloody Butcher', 'Sungold Select X', 'Virginia Sweets', & 'Aunt Ruby's German Green Cherry X')
fruit drying tomatoes
('Principe Borghese')
root 'Chantenay' carrot
root Jerusalem artichoke
herb 'Purple Ruffles' basil
herb oregano
vegetable summer squash mix
('White Scallop' patty pan@, 'Dark Green Prolific' zuke, 'Lemon' summer squash@, 'Yellow Crookneck' squash)
vegetable serrano peppers
vegetable jalapeno peppers
vegetable 'Magnum' habanero pepper@
vegetable sweet pepper@
('King of the North' & 'Italia')
@ Random rotation
+ + +
Use first Jerusalem artichoke, ripe tomatoes, herbs
Best keepers Carrots, squash, zucchini, hot peppers
Room temp All tomatoes & peppers
Dry it Purple basil & oregano
Quick Picks
Tomato sauce Tomatoes, oregano, basil + red wine, red wine vinegar, salt
Salsa Tomatoes, serrano, jalapeno, habanero, sweet peppers, zucchini + lime, garlic, red onion
Oven-dried tomatoes Principe Borgehese tomatoes, oregano, basil + olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic
>>> Or, try Mexican spices and hot peppers
Caprese salad Tomatoes, purple basil + olive oil, mozzarella cheese
Tomatoes
Starting to see the 'intentionally green' tomatoes come on - the taste-test winning beefsteak 'Aunt Ruby's German Green' and her cherry version which turns out to be a cross. The best way to tell ripeness with these is not by color, but by touch. The tomatoes' flesh should be soft and give a little when touched. A faintly yellow tinge also appears on the 'blossom end'.
'Principe Borgheses' are back, and we can now recommend the 2-hour roasting as an approximation of 7-hour sun-drieds. Sun-drieds are more flavorful, but roasted gives you more to bite into.
The beauty of heirlooms is really coming through - you're now seeing giant orange-yellows (doppelgangers Hawaiian Pineapple and Kellogg's Breakfast), pillow-shaped salad tomatoes with variations from yellow to striped to brown, and an expanding selection of cherries of all sizes and colors. We try to keep blemishes to a bare minimum (tomatoes with one healed wound and no open flesh), so you can see the exquisite variation between varieties. Supermarket consumers would probably cry out that they are not perfectly similar without any characteristic markings. But we are happy to share the bounty of summer when it includes map-like lines, dotted stripes, deep ruffles and fluted contours, and stretch marks where their antique genetics pushed the tomatoes' girth to gigantic proportions.
Feeling challenged
We tended to a lot of mostly disgusting disasters this week: Ruptured an eardrum, discovered a trash can functioning as an ecosystem, and harvested in a torrential gale. As for Gemma, we cleaned up so much dog barf, threw out the bed she yakked on, then she got sprayed in the face by a skunk. We also tended to a family member's fifth arrest and third rehab this year, all while other close family is getting married out of town this weekend. Hope you don't mind one-pager - we're ready hit the resent button right about now. Onward to glorious fall CSA shares!
Preview of next weeks 'Yukon Gold' potatoes, aronia berry, tomatillo, lemon cukes, beets, eggplant, golden raspberries, more tomatoes & more peppers
- Barrett Johanneson