Did you know that a ripe red bell pepper has more Vitamin C than an orange? We will have plenty of peppers at the market this weekend. Come by and get your VitaminC.

The first harvest of tomatoes! We enjoyed a tomato sandwich for lunch today – the first of many I hope. Although tomatoes are a summer crop the weather we have had for the last week or two is a little too hot, especially without any rain here at the farm.

Well here’s hoping for a break in the weather so we will have lots of tomatoes for the Eno River Farmers Market. At the market this Saturday, we will have a few tomatoes along with other fresh veggies and we will also have our fermented dill pickles.

The cucumbers are starting to produce really well. We are harvesting several varieties of seedless thin skinned slicers and a couple of varieties of picklers. The slicers are going to the farmers market but the picklers are being fermented  for dill pickles. In about a week or less we will have our first batch of dill pickles for this year.

 This week we will be harvesting sugar snap peas for the farmers market. The season for sugar snap peas is a relatively short one but while they are at the market everyone should enjoy them. A one cup serving of peas gives you one-third of your daily value of vitamin C and 3 grams fiber with only 67 calories. Regardless of the nutritional value, sugar snap peas are just good.

The countdown to the first tomatoes and cucumbers has begun. I can’t wait to taste the first tomato sandwich and the first sliced cucumber. These are both growing in our unheated hoophouse. We have several varieties of slicing tomatoes planted along with a very sweet cherry tomato variety.

 Two types of cucumbers are planted – a pickling variety and an European type. The pickling type will be used for our Bread ‘n Butter Pickles and for our fermented half sour pickles.

After attending a weeklong fermentation workshop given by Sandor Katz, author of Wild Fermentation, we decided to add fermented foods to our line of value added products. This week we will be bringing sauerkraut fermented from our own cabbage. We will have two varieties – plain and with caraway seeds. They both taste great and check out Sandor’s book for all the ways fermented foods are good for you. Fresh and local sauerkraut doesn’t get better than that.

This picture was taken on Sunday, the day after tornados devastated many parts of North Carolina. We are so grateful that we were not in the tornados’ path and our hoophouses were not damaged. Our hearts go out to our fellow Tarheels that lost loved ones, homes, and places of employment. Looking at the beautiful blue sky it’s hard to think about the awful weather that took place just 24 hours ago.

Carrots are one of our favorite crops to grow. In preparation for selling at the farmers market, they take longer to clean and bunch than many other crops but they are such a customer favorite that the effort is worth it. Recently we fermented some of our carrots and they are delicious. Just add a couple of spoonfuls to a salad for a tangy carrot flavor.

Swiss chard is both easy to grow and easy to use in recipes. It can be used in place of spinach in any recipe.  Swiss chard can be eaten raw or cooked in numerous ways. Nutritionally, Swiss chard is very high in vitamin A and high in other minerals such as calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium.

This winter we grew Swiss chard in our hoophouse and harvested it all winter to sell at the Eno River Farmers Market. It grew well throughout the winter. The only difference we noticed was the shortening of the stems during the winter when the days were short. As the day light hours have lengthened the stems have also lengthened. We enjoyed growing Swiss chard this winter and enjoyed trying it in many recipes.