Long overdue update

We have been so busy with the garden and farmer's markets that I haven't taken the time to update our blog. So here's our long overdue entry.

Everything is growing well considering the cool, wet summer we have had. Most of our produce is delayed in ripening, though. Today, we picked our first cherry tomato (delicious!!!) and have a few others that are orange. Hopefully we will have a couple of pints to sell by this weekend. All of our larger tomatoes are still green, hanging on the vine. Eric has picked two or three that have turned red, but they were rotten on the bottom. So we patiently wait for our thousands of tomatoes to ripen. This week is helping as the nights are staying warmer, which is what tomatoes need. But all of our spacing out of plantings so our tomatoes would ripen in intervals won't be a benefit because the weather is fighting us. We have been selling some green tomatoes at market, though. I tried fried green tomatoes for the first time last week, and they were delicious! I also made a green tomato salsa to give samples of at Franklin's Taste of Market last Saturday.

As of yesterday some of our melons were still under water because of all the rain last week. Today it's just mud, but it's windy so hopefully we will be able to walk through there tonight to see if it killed any plants. I picked our first zucchini yesterday, too, and we should have some yellow squash soon. Other growers have had summer squash for a few weeks now, but ours took a long time to grow.

We have joined a growers' cooperative of farmers who grow naturally in order to market our produce. They have a CSA (subscription) and they take produce to a market in Pittsburgh on Wednesdays. We are also going to the Franklin farmer's market on Wednesday and Saturday mornings, Grove City market on Thursday afternoons, and Sandy Lake market on Fridays. Gwen especially likes going to market to help, even when she has to get up at 5 a.m.

Below is a list of produce that we currently have. If you're interested in anything, please let us know and we can work out a way to get it to you if you can't come by our house.

green peppers
various hot peppers
cucumbers
green beans
yellow wax beans
zucchini
onions
cauliflower
beets