Phew! Summer is almost over. It’s been HOT HOT HOT!!
One thing it hasn’t been is wet. In fact, we could do with some rain. Can you believe it’s almost a year ago that we were flooded? The end of February in 2022 saw the first of three floods for our lovely little farms. We are crossing fingers and toes that we don’t have another February like that again.
On our Farm
We’re enjoying all the summer crops including cucumbers, zucchini, capsicum, eggplant, ginger, herbs, salad mix and lettuce.
These last few weeks have been taxing on our farm – the relentless heat has impacted seedling germination in our greenhouse, and meant that we need to harvest produce even earlier in the day to ensure it hasn’t yet been heat affected.
The team have been busy weeding – the farm gets a bit weedy during summer, so its always a good idea to try and stay on top of it.
Our ginger has especially been getting some extra attention to overcome the weeds.
Did you see our little Ginger patch friend we met last week? A great photo taken by one of our team members, Max, who I can assure you maintained a safe distance and left the little one to continue along undisturbed.
Our capsicum has been an interesting experiment. Did you know that red capsicum and green capsicum are actually the same thing…. red capsicum is just a riper version of green.
Although the bugs sure to enjoy the red ones a whole lot more, so we are harvesting our capsicum green to ensure we can get the most available.
We’re also using this time to refresh beds and fields, and plan for the coming season.
Veggies
Feels like things are a little stable in terms of veggie supply at the moment. We’re enjoying the return of Sweet Potato after its absence for a few weeks, as well as a good supply of Broccoli, Pumpkins and carrots. Corn has made its appearance (a little later than usual), as well as a steady supply of Truss Tomatoes and Cherry Tomatoes.
Leafy greens, especially Kale, are a bit hit and miss, often very affected by weather, as well as Celery. Our Summer Celery on the farm has finished for now so we are looking to source this from northern NSW, but the quality is somewhat unreliable at present.
Avocados are a bit tricky at this time of year, and a little more expensive that we’d like, as too is Garlic. Finally, Onions are still struggling in terms of quality due to weather impacts, so if you do ever have any concerns about them, please do let us know! We triple check quality on each item, but it can sometimes be a tricky one to spot.
Fruit
Well things certainly got a fair bit more exciting over the last month in terms of fruit!
Whilst we are still not seeing the usual supply of stonefruit, we are enjoying ongoing supply of yummy watermelon, grapes have become available again (hooray!), and Lychees are now available.
Cherries are also in stock although we do expect the season to end soon, and we are now supplying Papaya for our home delivery customers (yay! Breakfast bircher with coconut yoghurt and papaya!).
Lemons are out of season and limited in supply with some bush lemons coming through here and there. These are still juicy, but quite interesting looking on the skin.
New Season apples are on their way soon, which should mean some crispy apples for lunchboxes.
As we move into Autumn, we should start to see more citrus available and Pears too!
Happy February! Enjoy 🍎
