lunchbox peppers

Farm Update August 26, 2017

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The Great Ripening is upon us! We are harvesting loads of plum tomatoes now. Yesterday we harvested about 80 pounds from about 2/3 of the row. We have the tomatoes at the market this Sunday and should have them until early December.

Also, the corno di toro Italian sweet peppers are finally ripening en masse, as are the jalapeños and lunchbox peppers. All of these plants should continue to produce for a couple months at least.

We have had a few volunteers this week and have been able to get a bit more done on controlling the massive volume of weeds in our field. Little by little we are getting a handle on the weeds.

We will soon be selling CSA shares for our fall & winter CSA season that will start in early November and continue until mid-February. Please let us know if you want us to reserve a share for you.

Thank you for supporting local, organic, sustainable farming in southern AZ !

garlic, california early white
verona plum tomatoes

Farm Update August 19, 2017

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This week we finally transplanted the butternut squash seedlings. This is the latest we have ever transplanted winter squash. There should be just enough time for them to ripen before the first freeze. I am hoping for a warm fall and a late first freeze!

As can be seen in the images below, our sweet peppers are finally starting to ripen. This is much later than last year even though they were transplanted at the same time of the year. I think it may have to do with them being under 40% shadecloth in the high tunnel. One of the plants on the south end of the row that gets direct sunlight most of the day has corno di toro peppers that started ripening much earlier than the rest of the row, which is now catching up.

We will have a few of both varieties of sweet peppers at the market this week.

As mentioned last week SouthWinds Farm has been invited to participate in the Hacienda del Sol Heritage Foods Festival. This event will be held in the evening on Sunday, September 3. If you are interested in more information about this event, stop by our farm stand and pick up a flyer or visit HaciendaDelSol.com.

We will see you at the market!

lunchbox pepper
corno di toro, Italian sweet peppers

Farm Update September 10, 2016

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I hope you had a great holiday weekend. We caught up on some much-needed rest. We did a little work harvesting for our restaurant and store customers, but mainly took it fairly easy for the week.

We are back at it now and working apace to get our fall planting done. We are planting plenty of root vegetables – carrots, parsnips, rutabagas, cippolini onions, Iitoi’s onions, various types of beets, among others. We are also going to put in some fall broccoli, kales, Romaine lettuces, other head lettuces and collard greens, along with some other interesting greens.

As a reminder, we are nearing the end of the spring/summer CSA share deliveries – the last deliveries will be September 25 at Rillito and September 28 at Green Valley.

For those of you interested in signing up for the next round, this weekend/week we will begin taking payments/reservations for our 16-week fall/winter CSA share program, deliveries for which will begin the last weekend of October and run through the end of February 2017. Shares will cost $250 for 16 weekly deliveries. We will have the forms at the markets and also put them up on our website. Please let us know if you are interested in signing up!

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lunchbox peppers
img_0762_ripejalapenos-copy
ripe jalapeños
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purple & white eggplant