Rain on the farm and last tomatoes

What a big weather swing we have had in the last week!

On Thursday it reached 93 degrees and then on Sunday we had the first rain of the season. On the farm the rain gauge showed we got 0.4 inches of rain. It was less than some farms north of us got.

All the water soaked right up into the soil and didn’t keep us out of the field for the tasks we needed to do including weeding and transplanting.

The weather will continue to be cool the rest of the week with the daily lows in the mid-40s. We even got a fog on Tuesday that stayed around for a few hours in the morning.

With the cooling down of the weather and the rain that means that this will be the last week of the tomatoes. The combination of the temperatures and the rain will slow the ripening down to a halt of the few remaining green tomatoes on the plants and the plants don’t like not being able to dry out after the rain.

Luckily the weather early last week meant that a good amount of tomatoes have been ripening so we will have a decent amount at market especially of the Marvel Stripe variety.

The next few days of lows in the 40s will almost assuredly mean the end of basil for the year since it doesn’t like temperatures under 50 degrees. We still will have some today and Saturday at market but none after that.

Our cucumbers are done after last week and this week we will also be finishing up harvesting okra and summer squash.

We still will have peppers and eggplants for another couple of weeks as we harvest the ripe fruit on the plants.

While it is the last hurrah for many summer veggies we are also welcoming winter squash and broccoli to the market table this week.

The varieties of winter squash we have are Honeynut, Delicata and Butterbaby which is a baby butternut squash. They all are delicious and perfect for this cooler weather.