The first of our tomatoes are beginning to turn red and will start to appear in your boxes over the next few weeks. The plants look great and are loaded with fruit, so we almost certainly will be offering them for sale by the case, for those who like to can.
The cranberry shelling beans are starting to swell, and should also appear in your boxes over the next couple of weeks. These are a personal favorite of mine. I like to braise them quickly with garlic, minced onion, and fresh oregano—I can’t wait.
The basil in your boxes this week is from a seed trial we did with the Vitalis Organic Seed Company. Don’t let the large leaf size fool you, both varieties we trialed were bred off of the original “Genovese” strain and have excellent flavor. They both performed really well in our hoop houses and will definitely become part of our standard rotation.
This is the time of year when I start to sample the early apple varieties to see how they are coming along. We have a good crop this year, and over the next month we will start to pick the galas, fiestas, and jonagolds.
August is the month when we make a big push to get a lot of crops planted for fall and winter harvest. Soon we will be planting big (for us) blocks of parsnips, carrots, beets, turnips, black spanish and watermelon radishes—all of which store well over winter. August is also the month when we switch over to planting varieties of cauliflower, broccoli, fennel, and lettuce that do better in the cooler temperatures and shorter days of fall and winter. 
Pumpkins and winter squash have been in the ground for awhile now and the pumpkins are looking good to be ready for our Fall Harvest Festival on October 6th—mark your calendars!
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