March 5, 2008 - Morning Song Farm

As much as I love winter vegetables, I sure am ready for something new! In the greenhouse are a beautiful array of heirloom tomatoes: Sun Golds, Romanian, the ever popular Brandywine, Pruden’s Purple, Moskvich, Rosalita, and more. Also some nice heirloom eggplants: Black Beauty which is said to have a poor yield, but I love the fruit of this plant and haven’t found a yield problem myself; of course the heirloom Listada de Gandia from France we grow every year and we’re trialing Galine.

Herbs coming along: Lemon Balm, Stevia, Sage, and Orange Thyme. In ground we’re just starting to harvest cilantro, and soon dill.

You’ll notice this week the baby red-leafed romaine lettuce which is really tender and flavorful. We were having trouble getting it to germinate in the cold, but now we hope to be consistent with it each week.

In the greenhouse are plenty of peppers, mostly heirlooms. We have the Chocolate Beauty, the Red Knight, Kung Pao, and the Jalapeno.

We just put in our first planting of greenbeans; I think we’re a couple weeks early on that, but the risk is worth it. If we get hit with a late frost we’ll have to replant.

Lester Ip, charter member from the Costa Mesa gang has kindly pointed out a broc issue that seems to come and go. Aphids love our broccoli almost as much as we do! Herein lies the downside of organic production. Without the pesticides to whack down the bug population, it seems like every aphid in town occassionally drops by the living salad bar at Morning Song to stake a claim. I could say wash, wash, wash. But I’ve noticed with brocolli, that washing isn’t enough. Those darn aphids cling happily to their little brocolli world and have no intention of moving on. Here’s what I’ve discovered to be helpful if you’re not planning on eating it raw: get a pan of water going to a nice boil, drop in your washed brocolli for 60 seconds. Remove and rinse. Aphids are much more easily rinsed off at this point.