Herbs, and the story on fruit!

Yesterday everyone got a bonus bundle of herbs (thanks to the alternating rainy days and sunny weather, our miserable little herb patch exploded a bit and needed a trim). You should have found five different herbs in your box: sage, summer savory, anise, oregano, and parsley. Fellow share member Todd also brought in some mint, which got put in some of the boxes later... in any case, it was a lot of herbs! My recommendations are to either 1) cook a lot of italian/mediterranean dishes this week, or 2) tie up your herbs in a place with warm/hot dry circulating air (like above the rear of your fridge!) and dehydrate them for later use.

Sorry share members, but, when there is only one ripe melon... this is definitely what happens =)

Also, people have given me feedback about the share asking for more salad greens and, if possible, more fruit next year. I wanted to give everyone the quick lowdown on both points. Re: salad, I totally understand... what good is a crispy, tangy and spicy 'French Breakfast Radish' without a salad to put it in? Or, "of course, cucumber salad is yummy... but how about letting me put my cucumbers IN a salad of greens?" :) One of the things we hope to better manage next year is all of our quick-to-harvest (ie, ~30-day cycle) crops. It didn't help that many of the greens we grew dried out and died while in the school, but we plan to build a mini-hoophouse-greenhouse thingy for next year. This will help us keep a constant supply of salad greens, cooking greens, radishes, and other root crops.

Josie 'helping'

Re: what about fruit? Well, we planted seven fruit trees this year (only four of which survived transplantation... I have been hassling the company about their replacement guarantee for months). And we also planted a strawberry patch (which we will be expanding in the next few weeks) as well as a small raspberry patch. What is important to know in the context of all of this is that fruiting plants, bushes and trees generally need a year or more to establish strong root infrastructure + branching before it is recommended to allow them to fruit. So... if the plants and trees return next year in much stronger form, there may well be the occasional strawberries, raspberries, apples, pears, peaches, etc. in your box.

Thanks for understanding, and please be on the lookout for a survey that I will send at the end of the season, to take full stock in your compliments, recommendations and opinions.

best,
Mr. Mikulski

p.s. -- Thank you to those of you that helped make my surprise birthday party happen. You brought an immense amount of joy into one Saturday evening for this 'old man.' :) Here is a pic of the lovely 'garden birthday cake' you all made:

Notice how the cake comes pre-configured in a share-based layout... savvy!