Dear Farm Community -

Another busy week in the books! And before you ask…. no, not “busy” as in getting busted by the DEA in a record-breaking drug seizure at an Atlanta farmers market - we promise! We mean busy as in LOTS OF TRANSPLANTING!

Thursday was a huuuuuuge day for getting seedlings in the ground - Napa cabbage, green cabbage, sweet and tender cabbage, murdoc cabbage, farao cabbage, collards, and three varieties of radicchio (including sugarloaf endive) are now at home in the field along with four varieties of amaranth planted in the field above it! We also popped over to one of the high tunnels and planted a bed of Salanova lettuce. In total we planted over 5,000 seedlings in one day (what’s your superpower??) If you want to see a fun time lapse of us planting out the amaranth, head on over to our instagram page and take a look!

Before we get too far into this newsletter, a quick shoutout to Farmer Anna who has been working hard to learn the ropes on the John Deere tractor from Farmer Reid (aka our resident Tractor Aficionado). Anna gets more skilled every time she takes the ol’ tractor out, and it’s evidenced by the beautiful tractor work she did in shaping beds for us to plant into last week. Good work shouldn’t go unnoticed, so let’s have a round of applause for our girl on the tractor! 👏

Our harvests are starting to see our second-succession melon plantings producing some big juicy fruits, so keep an eye out at the markets for more watermelon, arava and sun jewel melons, and cantaloupes! Second-succession tomato plantings have some green tomatoes on ‘em and we’re looking to have more beautiful heirlooms and slicing tomatoes in the near future. For now our first-succession plantings are still producing just enough tomatoes to keep you eating salsa ;) Other exciting crops to keep your eyes peeled for are ginger, pink-eyed peas, salad radishes, and pears! We welcomed salad radishes back to the market this past Saturday and sold out early - looks like everybody’s excited to see (and eat) them again. While still a bit of a waiting game for ginger and pink-eyed peas, we’re keeping our eyes on ‘em and will be toting them with us to market and packing them in CSA’s just as soon as we can. Last week we also batch harvested all of the pears from our pear trees and as they ripen we will sort them and bring you the yummiest ones we have. Please enjoy some pics of Farmer Antho, Farmer Sabol, and Farmer Jackson gearing up for harvest!

With our Fall CSA only two weeks away, we’re looking at a wonderful mix of summer and autumn on the menu for this 12-week session. By now you’ve probably read my impassioned speech about how wonderful it is to get on board for the full season (I mean every word!!) so I’ll just leave you again with this handy link where the magic happens :)

Sign up by Sunday September 1st!

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In your CSA’s this week we’ll be celebrating red onions! Cry tears of joy as you chop them up for recipes divine. You can make yourself some homemade quick-pickled red onions, transforming crunchy raw onions into a flavorful and satisfying condiment in under an hour. Alternatively you could get fancy with this Bon Apetit French Onion Tart (ooh la la) that will get you rave reviews and a almost certainly a few “holy cow’s.” They also play a great supporting role in this Greek Sheet Pan Chicken that of course brings a little feta cheese into the mix. Large share members will be getting that first taste of pear season ~ try out this Pear Crisp as a lovely seasonal dessert to finish off your meal!

Happy eating :)
Diamond Hill Farmers

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