Brooklyn Farm: Colorado Branch

Farmer no. 1's mother is the original green thumb. 12 foot sunflowers in the high altitude of Colorado Springs (6,000 feet above sea level). It is more challenging to grow in higher altitudes because the temperatures are cooler and the growing season is shorter. The altitude in Brooklyn is around 100 ft above sea level, and our crops are a month ahead of Colorado crops. But we definitely don't have sunflowers like these...nice work!

Harvest: Carrots

Brooklyn Farm's Carrot No. 1 and Carrot No. 2
We planted only five feet of carrot seeds in the beginning of May and we have only gone through a third so far. We'll still plant more carrot seeds this year; carrots can tolerate lower air temperatures because they are root vegetables in the relatively warmer ground.

Food: 13 Farm Ingredients

Farm Friends M+K came over and helped us consume recent harvests. This was a big production using as many different vegetables as we could find in the field. Eggplant parmigiana with farm eggplant, fresh tomato sauce, basil and local mozzarella. The salad made use of farm bibb lettuce, salad bowl lettuce, arugula, basil, thyme, cucumber, carrots, beets and peppers. Thai chili peppers were thrown in to the cucumber salad.

Harvest: Habañero Pepper

The hot little nuggets have arrived. The habañero peppers have begun to turn peach color indicating that they are ripe…if you're gutsy enough. The measure of hotness is called the scoville scale and hotness units are Scoville Heat Units (SHU). A bell pepper has 0 SHU, jalapeños have between 2,500–8,000 SHU, our peach friend above has between 100,000–350,000 SHUs. And official US government issue pepper spray has between 2,000,000– 5,000,000 SHUs. You can see how wide the scale can get… even on the conservative side these peppers are 10x hotter than a jalapeño. Farmer No. 2 sliced up the pepper to and is planning to play tricks on people with beverages. 

Harvest: Cucumbers, Beets and Peppers

Nick the Farmer

Our interaction with Nick the Farmer is usually confined to speaking through a fence where he points to plants and tells us what are doing wrong. A bit of a curious character (he speaks to us in italian with fragments of english), one thing is for certain—Nick knows plants. 

This weekend Nick the Farmer stopped by and gifted some beautiful italian green beans he is growing next door. We are always hungry for tips so was ushered straight back to the farm where we spent a good half hour barraging him with questions, begging for more tips. Here the state of the cucumbers is discussed.

Here, Nick the Farmer teaches Farmer No. 1 how to give the concord grape vine a haircut. Pulling off leaves around the grape bunches makes it easier to see and pick them when they become ripe.
A lot was discussed. More tips and more on Nick the Farmer to come soon.

Food: Tomatoes with Basil

Farm Friends No. 1 and 2 visited last night and helped us with the recent tomato harvest. We sliced the black plum tomatoes, fresh basil, crumbled feta cheese, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and some salt and pepper.