The winter squash have pretty much sized up as much as they are going to. We’ve cut the water off and over the coming weeks we will let the plants dry up completely and the squashes themselves to cure. I’ve heard people say
that sugars and nutrients flow from the drying vines into the squashes during this period, and whether this is true or not, the squash do seem to have better flavor and keep better when fully cured in this way. After that we will clip them off and pack them in crates for the fall and winter. We grew a wider variety of hard squash this year, including; Carnival, Kabocha, Orange Hokkaido, Butternut, Hubbard, and an excellent cooking pumpkin called Winter Luxury. You can expect to see the first of the winter squashes in your boxes around the end of the month.
We planted the “Jack-O-Lantern” pumpkins later than I would have liked and for a while we were a little nervous about whether they would turn orange in time for our harvest fair and pumpkin patch in October, but with the warm weather we have had lately they seem to be right on track.
Today we start to pick several of our pear varieties including Hardy Buerre, Easter Buerre, Warren and Seckle. Pears are a little tricky because they need to be picked while still firm and then “conditioned” for a few weeks in the cooler. If you leave them on the tree until they are soft, they almost always turn pasty and dry. You can expect to see pears in you boxes starting in a few weeks.
Administrative Notes: (1) Please remember to check off your name on the sign-in sheets. We use these sheets to identify when there might be a mix-up or someone is consistently not picking up. Please help keep the sign-in sheets a useful tool for us by checking off your name when you pick up your box. Thank You!
(2) Starting next week, we are changing the web store cut off time to 7 am the day before your delivery. If you order after that time we will deliver your order the following week. We need to have our harvest list finalized by the time we send the crew out to pick in the morning. Thank you for your understanding.
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