Harvesting the first delicate green of Fall

Fall is officially here and even though the last couple of days have been in the 90s, we are starting to harvest our first fall green, arugula.

Arugula is one of the fastest growing veggies on the farm, taking about a month from when we sowed the seeds in the field to this point where it is ready to harvest.

The tender leaves have been growing quickly with the heat and the water we have been giving them. After we harvest the plants they will regrow so hopefully we get a couple of harvest off these plants before they get too tired to regrow.

This first arugula will be a little bit spicier than the arugula we are harvesting in December as the hotter temperatures lead to the spiciness and we pick it when the leaves are larger instead of baby arugula.

Arugula is great sprinkled over salads or can be added at the last minute into a veggie stir fry. The spiciness goes well with the sweetness of cherry or heirloom tomatoes in a salad.

Now that we are starting to harvest the first fall crop there will be lots more coming in rapid succession. Hopefully next week the chard and kale will be ready to be harvested along with the leeks.

We also will be having winter squash and pumpkins beginning the first markets of October. We added a fourth variety of winter squash this year to try it out and we also experimented with some decorative and carving pumpkins on our new land.

The germination for the pumpkins was not good due to the dry and clumpy soil but we do have small number of them.

While the summer crops are starting to wind down, the basil has been enjoying this late September heat with great regrowth after we harvest it.

If you haven’t satisfied your basil craving for the season or want to stock up on some pesto to store for the winter make sure to do that in the next couple of weeks.

Once the temperatures drop below 50 degrees for a couple of nights the basil will turn black and melt. We are going to try to put some row cover over the basil to keep it warmer but we are not sure if that will have any benefit.

Yesterday we mowed down the first of the summer crops with our melon field and we are starting to pull drip tape out of other crops that are wrapping up their season.

The cucumbers are almost done and the harvest of heat-loving okra are significantly slowing down.

We are still finding a decent amount of heirloom tomatoes but they are a much smaller size than a month ago and the cherry tomatoes are slowing down as we have a week left in September.