The strawberries are coming in very strong now, so we’ll continue Strawberry U-picks through the month of August. The berry patch is right next to the Farmstand this year, so we can spread out the U-picking time window to accommodate more of your schedules. Come anytime between 10:30 AM and 4:00 PM on Saturdays or Sundays. Just check in with Mike at the farmstand first to weigh your containers or get an empty one from us. If you’re freezing some of your berries, we recommend rinsing them in clean water, topping off the stems with a sharp knife and storing them in freezer bags. Then they are ready to make jam whenever you have the time or to throw into smoothies and strawberry desserts throughout the winter.
The broccoli in your box this week and/or last is an important part of our strawberry rotation scheme. Our strawberry crop is on a five year rotation, meaning that the current crop won’t be planted in the same place for another five years. The main reason for doing this is to break the cycle of strawberry specific, soilborne diseases like Verticillium, Phytophthora, and Macrophomina. In the intervening seasons we grow a variety of vegetables where the strawberries will be planted, but on the last year we plant exclusively broccoli. There is always a substantial amount of residue that is left after the central stalk of broccoli is harvested, and when this is chopped up with a mower and incorporated back into the soil, it works like a natural fungicide. This is something that both lettuce and strawberry growers have long known, and more recently has been proven in extensive trials by the University of California Extension.
Broccoli itself is a marginally profitable crop—for one thing it is a heavy feeder and requires large amounts of fertilizer, and during the main season supply often outstrips demand, driving the prices downward. It is largely broccoli’s value as a rotational crop that ensures that it will continue to be grown on a large scale around here. We tend to think of it almost as a harvestable cover crop to the point that we don’t get too excited if we aren’t able to keep up with the harvest. Especially when the warm weather pushes two successive blocks, planted two weeks apart, to mature all at once.
We do hope you are enjoying the broccoli as much as we are, however. My favorite quick thing to do with broccoli lately is to cut it into small florets and to saute/braise it in a wok with lots of garlic and red pepper flakes. What’s yours?
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