Starting to harvest delicious basil, cone cabbage & broccoli

The sights and smells of summer are continuing to develop on the farm with the first harvests of Genovese basil.

Just in the last couple of weeks they have grown so much with the warmer weather and the longer hours of sunlight we’ve had.

Two weeks ago we pulled the row cover off the basil to weed it and got inundated with the amazing smell of basil.

After that weeding the basil has grown rapidly with the rising temperatures and being irrigated.

Last Friday we harvested the first few bunches of Genovese basil and we will be harvesting loads more in the coming weeks.

The plants usually produce one main stem at the beginning and once we harvest it they will branch out growing multiple stems that we can harvest.

Joining the basil in beginning to harvest we will have the first few summer squash at the farmers market today.

During the heat wave in March we decided to seed an extremely early planting of summer squash and that is what we are starting to pick. Unfortunately it didn’t germinate well but we will have a little bit of really early summer squash.

While the first summer veggies are coming in, we also are starting to harvest the first of the spring of some of the cooler season crops like broccoli and cabbage.

Just two weeks ago the broccoli heads were barely visible but they have grown so quickly that we will have a good amount at market this week.

This is the first of a few successions we planted earlier this spring and will harvest all of them over the next few weeks.

Everyone is so excited that we are back to harvesting the cone cabbage. It is such a delicious cabbage and a great size to have enough for a few dishes but not too much.

Plus it is easier to cut than the round varieties and is more delicious.

All the spring veggies at all different stages are looking good especially all the successions of lettuce.

Yesterday we planted the last of our spring veggies with three trays of lettuce varieties that will handle the heat better than most other ones.

We’ve got a majority of our summer crops planted but we are continuing to plant melons and watermelons every couple of weeks so that we can have a more continuous harvest throughout the season.

The first plantings of melons and cucumbers are flowering right now which is a very exciting sign for the upcoming months of harvest. It is great weather for the flowers to turn into fruit before it gets too hot and the chance rises of the flowers dying.

Luckily the first tomatoes are flowering a lot and we have even some green tomatoes on the plants.