Coming Soon to a Market Near You
During the last couple weeks, we’ve seen some of our favorite fruits and vegetables come into season: cherries, sugar plums, summer squash, cucumbers, peas, kohlrabi, and many more.
And yet, here at Farm to City, we’re an impatient, hungry bunch that just wants more...and more...and more. We’re already anxiously awaiting the arrival of the next round of fruits and vegetables. We’re even excited for crops that won’t make it to market for many more months.
Unable to stand the suspense any longer, we asked the local growers for some sneak previews from the farm. “What do some of our favorite summer and fall crops look like now?” we asked them.
Here’s what they sent us, straight from the fields and rows.
Coming Attractions…
Taproot Farm
Blueberries
Estimated Release Date: very soon.
We expect to see the first of the 2021 blueberries any day now, maybe even this weekend. Based on this photo, they’re almost ready, just blue enough to whet our appetite for all those pies and pancakes, all those delicious handfuls, coming our way.
Don’t feel too bad if you miss their first showings. They’re always in short supply when they start coming to market, a quick sellout, but by the second or third week there should be enough pints and quarts for everyone.
One interesting thing to note: the Native Americans sometimes called this berry star-fruit in reference to its star-shaped blossom. As this photo indicates, while they’re still ripening, you can see an echo of that star-shaped blossom at the bottom of the berries.
Robin Hill Organics
Heirloom Tomatoes
Estimated Release Date: two or three weeks, or according to some farmers “always the first full moon in July.”
Still green and hard as a rock, these giant berries -- botanically speaking, a tomato is a berry -- will be taking over the markets very soon, and we are eager for their arrival.
Sometimes it feels like the whole growing season revolves around the tomato. Most farmers even request adding extra tables and tents to their market space just to have enough room for all their tomatoes!
And now, thanks to these heirloom varieties, they come in all different shapes and sizes and colors. It seems like every year we get to feast on a new tomato. At Baker Creek Farm, the largest heirloom seed company in North America, they now divide their tomato offerings by color: red, orange, yellow, green, pink, white, striped, even blue tomatoes and black tomatoes. At High Mowing Seeds Farm in Vermont, they have -- new for 2021 -- a tomato called Chocolate Sprinkles.
Who knows what special varieties will be coming to our Philadelphia-area markets this year? We’re excited to find out with you. Just got to hold on for a few more weeks.
Beechwood Orchards
Hardy Kiwi Berries
Estimated Release Date: end of August.
Yes, these really are kiwis. There are about 60 varieties out there in the plant kingdom. Some of them are completely inedible to us, and most of us only know what’s called the ‘Hayward’ cultivar of the fuzzy kiwifruit, but there are other varieties that can actually withstand the cold temperatures of a typical Pennsylvania winter.
They’re called hardy kiwi berries.
They won’t get much larger than what we’re seeing in this photo but they will get plumper as it continues to hang in the summer sun. They’ll also never develop the kind of fuzzy skin that we associate with the fruit, but that’s okay with us. One less thing in the kitchen to peel and cut.
They’ll be harvested at the end of August, when they’re still firm and unripe. It’s one of those fruits that farmers pick when it’s not ready to eat. The term is climacteric and it’s used to describe fruit that only reaches true ripeness after they’ve been picked, like pears and bananas.
And like the banana, they’re ready to be enjoyed when they’re softer and darker. If you’ve never had them before, you’re in for a surprise. They taste just like kiwi!
If we remember correctly, Beechwood Orchards from Biglerville, PA, is the only orchard coming to Farm to City markets that grows this kind of fruit. Beechwood Orchards attends the Swarthmore and Rittenhouse Saturday market every week, will return to the University Square market in the fall, and sets up at other locations in the area.
Urban Roots Farm
Delicata Squash
Estimated Release Date: early September.
They’re now only tiny, tender seedlings, only four weeks old and just freshly transferred from the greenhouse into a giant row of its own, but these little guys will end up bearing one of our favorite fall vegetables: the winter squash.
This particular seedling is a delicata squash. It has one of the quickest growing cycles of any winter squash but it’s still about 70 to 80 days away from being ready to feed us.
It’s kind of crazy and a little sad to think about, but when those winter squashes are ready to be picked and ready to feed us, the plants themselves will be at the end of their own life cycle.
“Ideally, the plant will have started to die back before harvest,” according to the educators of Penn State Agricultural Extension. “This way you know all the plant’s resources have gone into your squash.”
In September, those leaves -- the same leaves we now see just getting their first taste of the sun and rain -- will begin to shrink and wither, turn yellow, dry out and fall off into the rows, all signs to the farmer that the seed vessel that is a winter squash is ready for market.
Pennypack Farm
Sweet Potatoes
Estimated Release Date: October
In this final coming attraction, here we see the farmers of Pennypack Farm planting one of the most popular items of the fall and winter markets: the sweet potato.
"Over several days the sweet potato seedlings are planted and immediately watered so that they can withstand the shock of being transplanted,” the Pennypack farmers explain.
“The plants look like little green sticks with no leaves but it is only a matter of time before they develop roots and begin growing foliage after they are planted in our soil. They will grow in the fields for four months and will be harvested in early October before the first frost.
“If all goes well, we will see them in the late autumn. For now, we welcome the little plants and give them the best start possible, hoping for a good crop to come!”
And Now Back to Our Regular Programming
This was just a little sampling of things to come…and we thank all the farmers who sent us these sneak previews of what’s in store for us this year at the market, all the work and all the waiting that goes into a full growing season.
From now until the end of the year, there will always be something new every week at the market. Now that’s what we call entertainment!