Week 5: A Weather Yo-Yo!

Greetings Y'all!

I hope this cloudy June morning finds you all well.  We have been having quite the weather Yo-Yo in these here parts, humid to hot and humid, to super cells and golf ball size hail, to 90 and dry and now back to predicted heavy rains....and all this since I last wrote you!  Remember when you didn't really even have to look at the weather for Fort Collins because it was always 85 and a 20% chance of thunderstorms after 11am?  Oh the good 'ol days.  Aside from covering and uncovering, moving flats in and out and crossing our fingers on the storms, this week has been full of transplanting and seeding.  June is always a bit of a crazy month because everything starts growing super fast. We have greens to harvest and things still need to be planted, weeded, and watered.  I am curious as to how this June will compare to others as most growth revolves around the Summer Solstice.  For six weeks before and six weeks after the Solstice, we get the most growth on the farm.  For those of you who are keeping track, four of the first six have been rainy and cold...lets all keep our fingers crossed for an Indian Summer!  Hmmm, I just realized that I could probably write my own Farmer's Almanac for Colorado just by looking back at the last seven years of weekly newsletters....maybe I should start writing less about the weather and more about politics.  Just kidding. 

Zucchini has arrived for the summer! Photo by Claire Burnett

Magical and fun things are starting to happen on the farm these days.  In addition to the sighting of a mysterious weasel/mink/wood chuck type creature (a neighbors's tail-less cat perhaps?), we have been observing the scaping of the garlic, the elongation of the zucchini, and bulbing of the fennel.  Garlic scapes are the seed head of the garlic bulb that we planted way back in November.  If left to their own devices, the scape would keep growing, pulling nutrients away from the growing garlic bulb and eventually flower and produce garlic seed.  To ensure your garlic is as large and lovely as can be, we will snap off the scapes and as not to waste something so tasty, bring them to market for you all to enjoy.  They taste like garlic flavored asparagus and can be grilled or roasted with olive oil and salt for delicious side.  I will also just throw them into any dish that I want to impart that garlic flavor on...or try making some pesto...maybe with some spinach or arugula?  Zucchini has arrived for the summer.  Like that favorite scarf that can be used to dress up or dress down an ensemble, the versatility of the vegetable is unrivaled in the veggie world.  From a raw salad  to  pizza crust, just start at chapter one of the zucchini cook book and go nuts. I always like to start simple, enjoying the tender fruit for what it is.  You have all summer to start disguising it in breads, latkes, and soups. :)

Finally, don't forget to fill out our land survey!  I sent it out last Friday afternoon and we need your feedback! We will be thrilled to hear if you love the project, but more importantly we want to hear if you hate the project. This is part of our due diligence before we act so we need to make sure it is in our best interest to move forward with it.  If there is not support from our greatest veggie lovers out there, we will need to re-evaluate our current strategy.  Click on this link to take you to the survey now.

It should take five minutes to look over the background info and 2-4 minutes to take the survey. We are looking for responses by tomorrow evening.  Thank you all in advance!!!!

See you all real soon!
Katie