Someone decided to build a nest and raise her family in the cherry tomato vines inside the greenhouse. It's all good so long as everyone understands that this is not a free tomato buffet! If so, it looks like I should have a few baby birds singing along with me while I pick Sungolds in a little while.
Tomato tastings!! Stop by the Downtown Raleigh Farmers Market this Wednesday July 8th for yes, another free tomato tasting! We had a lot of fun doing this last Wednesday (and happily sold a slew of tomatoes), so we plan to do it one more time this Wednesday just in case you were out of town for the holiday last week. If you can't catch up with us this Wednesday downtown, there will be a market-wide tasting hosted by the Midtown Farmers Market on Saturday, July 11. We have about a dozen different varieties available, and you'll be able to sample them all, as well as many other varieties from all of Midtown's tomato growers.
Last week to stock up on carrots and beets until the fall! We still have a good supply of orange carrots, a few yellow carrots, and a zillion beets. However, we really need to get these out of the ground by the week's end so we can get that field cleaned up and start preparing it for fall and winter crops (yes, we need to start planting for winter in July!). Both carrots and beets will store up to two months in your fridge: remove any leafy tops, and store the unwashed roots in a plastic bag or other airtight container towards the bottom of the refrigerator.
Peppers and eggplants have arrived! I was hoping to offset these until August, but the plants don't always do what I tell them to, and everything has a habit of sneaking up on us all at once in July. Just green bell peppers and purple peppers (a little sweeter than green peppers, not as sweet as red ones) for now, the red bell peppers take roughly another two weeks to mature. Familiar glossy black eggplant; and an heirloom variety from Italy called 'Rosa Bianca' which has a sweeter flavor and firmer texture than the usual eggplant.