I am heading out to pick sugar snap peas. We are now cutting the last planting of sunflowers and I have bouquets made up. The Pick Your Own tomato patch has many green tomatoes, however the red ripe tomatoes take more work to find. We have been picking red tomatoes from this patch for over eight weeks and at this point finding large quantities of red ripe tomatoes at one picking would be hard work. Surely you can still find small quantities.

 At the farmstand we have many red ripe tomatoes as we have other patches for the farmstand and we work to keep a large selection of varieties available.  I've pulled the last of our onions and have them on the stand as well. We have 5lb bags of potatoes, garlic, summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers and the first of our delicata squash.

We have new product at the farmstand. I am trying something new and offering fair trade, organic shade grown coffee beans to purchase by the pound. I also have raw almonds, cashews and walnuts. For personal care we have Kiss My Face lotions packaged in my reusable jars or bring in your own and we will  weigh out the lotion.  As I find room in the shop I would like to offer more products in bulk. Is there anything you would like to see offered? I would like any thoughts on this new endeavor. My motive is to increase sales and possibly be open after Christmas tree season with packaged and unpackaged dry goods such as coffee, beans, raw nuts, grains, specialty teas and more.

We have many strawberries ripening right now and would like to offer them to our customers before offering them to a local store. We will sell ten or more pints at $2.75 per pint if you order them right away. That is .50cents off per pint and comes to a $5 savings for 10 pints. You must order at least 10 pints to get the discount and I am unsure how many days we will have this offer, so don't wait too long. Call the farm phone at 868.2001 and leave your phone # and we will call you back and set up a pick up time.

Today's quote: The challenge is in the next step, not the end of the trail.

I sold out of strawberries and sugar snap peas at the Northwood farmers market yesterday. Many folks thought it highly unusual to find NH strawberries in September and I had a lot of explaining to do about these day neutral varieties.  I really enjoy talking about our crops and watching people's faces when they taste these sweet berries. Strawberry shortcake in September sounds good to me!

There is still plenty of tomatoes in the "pick your own" patch. Don't wait too long if you plan on freezing, canning or making up some fresh sauce and then freezing it. At some point the tomato patch will begin to degrade. We still have two other field patches of tomatoes that we hope will be for late fall green/perhaps red tomato pickers.

The late summer plantings of sugar snap peas are ready. We are picking these for the farmstand. So far we have four plantings of them in the ground. We love sugar snaps because we can eat them, they  trap nitrogen within their roots and when we are finished picking on them they are tilled in and provide beneficial organic matter to the soil. It's a win, win, win, situation.

The Pick Your Own tomato patch has plenty of tomatoes for picking. The cherry tomatoes have been picked down for now however we closed the bed all weekend during the fair so it ripened up in good order.

At the farmstand we have silver king corn today, sunflowers, bouquets, lots of handmade herbal infusions soaps, colorful glycerin soaps, numerous varieities of tomatoes and many other farmstand vegetables.

We are still open every day. Monday thru Friday 9am -6pm and Saturday and Sunday 9am - 4pm.

fair website and schedule for the weekend at   agfair.wordpress.com

The farmstand is also stocked with our fresh picked vegetables which include summer squash, zucchini, onions, garlic, twisted carrots, many types of tomatoes, sunflowers and bouquets.  We have 3 different potatoes from the Root Cellar Farm in Northwood.

I will not be at the Northwood farmers market today, thursday.The farmstand will be open at the farm until 6pm as usual. Randy and I lost a dear friend and we will be at the calling hours this afternoon.

Tomorrow, Friday, after 4 or 5pm we will be back from the funeral and will be setting up for the fair with other volunteers.

Our Silver King sweet corn is out until Thursday most likely. We just finished a planting that came on earlier than expected and the next planting is not quite ready. However surprise, surprise, the sugar snaps are back on. Randy planted late summer sugar snaps and they look and taste great! We hope to have multiple plantings mature until a hard freeze.

Also at the farmstand we will have a limited amount of strawberries. They are beginning to produce more each day with the cooler temperatures. We have carrots, onions, 3 different potatoes, garlic, summer squash, zucchini, crispy pickling cucumbers and many varieties of tomatoes including heirlooms, three paste tomatoes and many salad types.

The Pick Your Own tomato patch has many, many, many,did I say many, tomatoes to pick. I need to get out there and pick some myself and load them into the dehydrator.

To download  the passport and farm list go to: www.nheatlocal.org

Visitors can get stickers on their passport game card from us and Sallie's Fen during the fair. You must visit at least four farms and collect four stickers to be eligible to enter a prize drawing in September.  There are at least two other farms close by in Lee that are participating as well. You have all weekend to visit these farms. 

During the fair Sunday August 29th we will have taste testing of a locally raised roasted pig. This tasty treat was anonymously donated by a Barrington supporter of the Natural Heritage Commision and the fair and we greatly appreciate it.

Our mid summer plantings of pickling cucumbers are producing good numbers now. We have two varieties of sweet corn, all white Silver King and Mauntauk. Both are really sweet!

We are gearing up for the fair August 28th and 29th and finalizing last minute details.