Harvesting up a Storm & the First Sunflowers of the Season

Village Farm Team,

We’ve been harvesting up a storm lately to keep up with our peas, squashes, and tomatoes. While we’re in the last week or so of our sugar snap and snow peas, we are in full swing with summer squashes and tomatoes. Our Sun Gold and Sunset Falls tomatoes have been the first varieties to ripen with the Indigo Roses soon to follow suit. As the name suggests, Sun Gold tomatoes are a golden-orange colored cherry tomato variety with an intensely sweet flavor. We highly recommend picking some up on Saturday at the veggie wagon but make sure to get there early as they will sell out fast!

Hungarian Hot Wax peppers are joining our delicious veggie line up as we made the first pepper harvest this week. This pepper variety is yellow-skinned and similar in appearance to a Banana pepper. Though we harvest these peppers when they are yellow, if left on the plant they will eventually turn red. Like a jalapeno, the heat can vary in these peppers from mild to medium. They are perfect for roasting, sautéing, and pickling.

We noticed the first blooms on our muskmelons last week and this week the watermelons decided to follow suit. Not to be outdone, the first of our sunflowers opened up their sunny heads, too. Did you know that botanically speaking, a watermelon is considered a berry? A berry is classified as a fleshy fruit that does not contain a pit and is produced from a single flower that has only one ovary. Other botanical berries include tomatoes, cucumbers, and eggplants.

In honor of Mother’s Day we have some special activities planned on the farm this Saturday. We’ll have yoga on the event lawn at 9am to help mom cultivate some peace and grounding. Following yoga there will be a Mother’s Day craft for the kids at 10am using the beautiful wildflowers that were planted during January’s Farm Fun Day. And in case you needed to pick up a little something special for the holiday, our farmers market will be set up from 8am to noon. We hope to see you out there!