Wow, this weather has been amazing! It's hard to believe it's mid July and the temperatures are in the mid 80's to 60's at night!

We've had a good week. We had box day on Tuesday, and picked eggplant, okra, tomatoes, peppers, peaches and blackberries for that. We also had onions and potatoes to put in the boxes. We took excess produce to the Fulton Farmers' market on Wednesday, then I baked on Thursday and we picked again on Friday for today's markets. Greg & I went to Columbia and Lucas & Megan went to Fulton. But unfortunately blackberries didn't go well today, so I need to freeze about 16 quarts and use for jam and pies to sell later!

We've been digging on the potatoes. We have 3 rows done, and 2 and half yet to go. So far we've dug the Red Norlands, Yukon Gold's and the Nor Valley's, which are a white potato.

We've used the new tractor a couple of times to pull wagons, and it seems to work very well and easy, so I think it will be a welcome addition to the "family"!

Well yesterday was box day. It was nice and cool for picking, but the rain I could have done without! At least it didn't rain at delivery time! The full shares got okra, eggs, peaches, blackberries, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes and onions. The half shares got eggs, peaches, blackberries, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes and onion. I only had one person forget to pick up their box!

Sunday Greg & I went to Tennessee to get a tractor and hauled it home on Monday. So that was a long trip, but hopefully the tractor will come in very handy and put to lots of good use!

Today I'm going to the Fulton farmers' market at 3:30p.m. I have extra tomatoes, onions, eggs, peaches, eggplant and peppers to get rid of. Things are starting to pick up, but I'm not sure how this cool weather is going to effect things. The okra, eggplant and peppers like it hot and sunny!

We are one hand short now as Joe has left on his mission trip to Africa for a couple of weeks. Our son says we should get used to it, when Joe gets back our son plans to go to Colorado for a week. Then school will start the next week and we will be kiddless again! Just as things are picking up!!

Yesterday evening we started pulling onions. We have about half done and got eight buckets! I worked on getting the okra weeded and cut!

Today is baking day, so I'd better get to it!

Yesterday was box day. I hope everyone is enjoying. If you have any questions please ask as we want everyone to have a good experience and for their produce not to go to waste. We try to pick everything ripe and ready to eat, but sometimes we have to pick a little under ripe because if we wait a couple of days till it's ripe we don't have a market for it.
The tomatoes are starting to come on and we raise the regular hybrid red tomatoes, but we also raise heirloom tomatoes. Now for those of you who don't know what heirloom tomatoes are they are the original old fashioned open pollinated varieties. They come in all shapes (oblong, fluted, pear, etc.) and colors. And by colors I mean everything from red to dark burgundy, reddish brown to yellow, orange, white, multi colored (yellow with red, red with green, etc.) to neon green and also pinks! The heirlooms are sometime referred to as the ugly tomato. This refers to the fact that they don't ripen uniformally and that they tend to crack and split and are more prone to diseases. You may be asking then why raise them and the answer is TASTE!!! Over the years breeders have bred tomatoes to ripen uni formally and have the same uniform shape and color, be disease resistant and firmer for shipping purposes. This is what the grocery stores want perfect uniform fruit! But in the breeding process for these traits one has been left behind and that is the one of taste. Now that being said, again we sometimes pick them a little under ripe, so the main way to tell if they are ripe is by feel. One of the best tasting heirlooms we have is the Ananas Noir. Now if you wait for it to look ripe you will miss out on it. It will come to you looking like an unripe tomato that is starting to go rotten! It is a brownish red with sickly green coloring (hence the "Ugly Tomato" description!), but it is ripe, and when you cut into it the green part is almost a neon green color, but the taste is unbelievable! Now that I've got you all excited about that one it will be a little later before you get it but there are other heirlooms that are starting to come on, so just have an open mind about them and close your eyes if you have to and take a bite!

Market went pretty well today. We sold all our peaches and sold out of eggs! We sold a few potatoes, but dropped the price as we thought they were way to high compared to a box of peaches! We sold most of the baked goods, too. Joe went to market with us and he really got into selling!

I hope everyone is enjoying their peaches. Here is a recipe that a friend had posted on her blog, in case you're wondering what to do with your peaches! Also there's another recipe from her blog for banana peppers that sounds good! I can't wait to try it out. This next week you should be getting banana peppers and/or bell peppers, but I think it would work well with any kind of pepper.

Just Peachy Breakfast Shake
1 medium banana, frozen and sliced
1 cup frozen unsweetened peach slices
¾ cup vanilla yogurt
½ cup calcium-fortified cranberry juice
Soy protein powder (optional)
Place all ingredients in blender or food processor and process until pureed. Pour into a tall glass and serve.

Feta Stuffed Banana Peppers Adapted from www.chowhound.chow.com
5 large banana peppers, tops off and seeded
Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil
Feta Cheese or Goat Cheese
In a zip lock bag add salt, pepper and a little olive oil. Place cleaned peppers in bag and seal. Coat the peppers with mixture and remove from bag. Grill peppers on medium-high heat (with cover shut) for about 5 minutes on each side. Take off the grill and stuff with feta cheese (we used garlic feta) and place peppers back on grill and grill for another 2 minutes until cheese is melted.

Well I hope everyone is enjoying their boxes this week. There were peaches, blueberries or blackberries, eggs, bread, potatoes, tomatoes, kohlrabi, eggplant, peppers and herbs. The blackberries are beginning and the blueberries are on the way out.

I've been doing a little bit of repair on our strawberry row cover. It has 3 major tears in it. I hand sewed one, but I went and got some fabric glue I'm going to try to use on the rest!!!

We worked on digging potatoes yesterday. We got one row dug and got about fifteen five gallon buckets off it total! We only have four more rows to dig!

Yesterday was errand day, and as always we were busy watering. It takes a while to get it all done, and then when you finish it's time to start all over again!

Today I'm baking. I have added peach bread to the list today and am leaving out sweet potato.

What a nice week this past week was! You couldn't have asked for nicer weather to transplant plants. We got all our pumpkins, gourds, zucchini, summer squash, cucumbers and melons out. We just have a few more melons to go, but they were a little on the small side. We baked on Thursday, but I cut back since market was going to be on the 4th and that's typically not a good market day. Friday we picked a couple hundred pounds of peaches to take, was a little worried about getting rid of them all at market, but we did as the big peach people were not at the market on Saturday. But as we thought, the market was slow. Even though I cut back on baking we still didn't get rid of all the baked goods, didn't sell any swiss chard or much herbs! But it was also rainy! I'm not sure how much rain we got as we haven't ever put up our rain gauge, but I've heard from people around us that we got anywhere from 5" to 7" of rain Saturday morning! We were needing some, but not that much or that fast! Yesterday Greg got some brush mowed out back so we could find some of our blackberry bushes, and the guys and I took down the electric fence around the strawberry patch. Then we gathered up the row cover and brought it in and spread it out all around the yard and drive way to dry out so we can fold it up and put it away. Today while I'm baking, I'm going to have them go out and pick up all the rocks we used to hold the row cover down and get them put out of the way. I can't decide whether to bake applesauce or persimmon bread today! Have to go to the freezer and see how the persimmon supply is doing, I know I have plenty of applesauce!