– SUMMARY –

Farm is open 7 days a week 8:00 to 8:00 rain or shine • Pick garlic now • Pick shallots now • Pick raspberries now • Pick flowers now • Pick first sweet peppers & eggplant now • Pick “salt apples” a.k.a. Yellow Transparent apples now • Fresh donuts Friday, Saturday, and Sunday 11:00 to 5:00 • Stuff at the stand = cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, honey, syrup, pottery, flowers, slushees • COVID protocols include (1) Keep SAFE distance, (2) wear MASK in closer quarters, (3) monitor your KIDS, (4) we provide CONTAINERS for picking til further notice • Drive slowwwly on the farm • Thank you for supporting small farms (and being kind)

– FULL STORY –

DEAR FARMKETEERS:  Do not be troubled, for when the world has gone mad, sad, bad, or even plaid – still there is garlic.  Garlic to have and garlic to hold.  Garlic for your loves, garlic for your loaves.  Yes, this week, we recognize two worthy ‘Creekniks of the ‘Weeknik, who by their gentle example have counseled us that when the world has gone barmy – GARLIC.  Garlic for your mind.  Garlic just in time.

Pick your own garlic now.  This is the final week.  Early next week, Garlic Greg will harvest any remaining bulbs to store in his secret apocalypse root cellar.  Meanwhile this photo, and the cover photo above, and the next three below, come from our first ‘Creeknik of the ‘Weeknik @samanthanfountain, who not only picked and put up, but also Instagrammed her haul with the effortless panache of a champion locavore digital native.

Lo, behold, cloves.  Cloves of garlic.  Plumply bulbed together.  Samantha’s story said, “Massive clove of garlic from the harvest today.  Only four of these make up one big fist.”  The fist of justice!  The fist of power!  The fist of kindness!  Please note the nomenclature:  cloves make a bulb, bulbs make a fist, and they are all priced by the head.  Cloves, bulbs, fists, heads.  But no dustups or donnybrooks on the farm!  Please and thank you!  Nonviolent agriculture!  Amen!  U-pick pricing = $2/head (1 to 9 heads), $1.50/head (10-49), $1.25/head (50-100), and $1/head (100+).  Pull yours ASAP.

And now a jar of avant-garlic foodism by Samantha:  “Excited to ferment some garlic honey giant cloves from @indiancreekfarmithaca in a dark molasses-like raw buckwheat honey from Waid’s Honey @ithacafarmersmarket.”  Booyah.

Don’t stop at garlic – you need shallots to sweeten and balance.  Garlic Greg says you harvest shallots just like garlic, but pay like flowers:  shallots are $6/handful.  Big hands, big savings.  Studious foodies will study the anatomy of shallots.

On the fruit side of the The ‘Creek, you can still pick raspberries.  Best crop ever and people have been finding lots.  It is starting to feel like last chance for the summer berry crop, especially if the weekend is busy.  Please come get yours, the autumn crop is smaller.  Lovely photos, Samantha.  Thank you.

Our Co-‘Creeknik of the ‘Weeknik models exemplary form seen among the most perspicacious and perseverant pickers:  Look under the raspberry leaves to find booty missed by the masses.  No tantrums if you don’t see any berries on first inspection.  A teachable moment for your youngsters.  And after all that learning, catnaps are permitted.

How did she earn ‘Creeknik status?  By harvesting 107 heads of fresh garlic!  Bravo and thank you for sharing.

Still time to pick flowers?  Yes, you can cut your own bouquets in the field by the farm stand.  Current flowers include zinnia, snapdragon, celosia, ageratum, gomphrena, scabiosa/pincushion, cornflower/bachelor buttons, dianthus/carnations, strawflower, aster, marigold, verbena, and statice.  You can also get them at the stand in bouquets (jars included), designed by fruit farmers in the rare dull moment.

What time is donut time?  Donuts are rolling off the Mark 2 Donut Robot 3 days a week this year.  You can get them Friday, Saturday, and Sunday 11:00 to 5:00.  Nick the Donut Kid is churning out these freshly fried toroids of fructotic splendor – optionally sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.  “A sprinkle of SIN, SUGAR,” is all you need to say.  You can also get lemon slushees every day at the donut-slushee window.  It’s a square hole in the barn wall.  (Peaches not ready to pick yet.)

Are peaches ready to pick yet?  Not yet.  Hold your pants on.  A couple weeks.  Maybe even less.  Maybe a week.  It’s a long time to hold your pants on.  So we promise to announce in a Fresh Crop Alert as soon as we know.  Unless we have an emergency need to post it on Facebook for some reason of complex agricultural timing.  Heads up — only about 60% of the crop seems to have survived the spring frost.  Therefore competition will be vigorous.  We don’t want to have ration the peaches.  So be nice.  No brannigans or brouhahas!  No scraps or slobberknockers!  WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.  Meanwhile there are Pennsylvania peaches at the farm stand.  To hold you over.  They taste pretty much the same to be really honest.  And there are some nice people in PA.  It’s okay to start on those.

Pick your own eggplant.  The ripening of these first Nightshades ALMOST pushed us to jump the gun and sound the Horn of Plenty, a.k.a., the cornucopia.  But it wouldn’t be right til peaches and maybe tomatoes are on the scene.

Pick your own sweet green peppers.  If you find one in the field wearing a squash flower on its head, RUN!  Definitely not cool.  That would mean entropy is decreasing, a most unnatural state of affairs – far worse than a runaway climate.

Saved the best for last.  Nothing creates a community orchard bumrush like Yellow Transparent apples – time to pick now!  Your Siberian friends REALLY LIKE these apples.  The Yellow Transparent apple is a cold-hardy variety imported in the 1800s from Putinlandia before it was officially called that.  It ripens in July for the short northern season.  To cut the acidity, people in the olden days added salt (take note, foodies!) and called them salt apples.  We call them Old Yellers.  They are way better than Honeycrisp.  They make a CREAMY apple sauce, first chance of the year.  Good stuff to be thankful for.  Please come pick these apples.  They are dropping as we speak.  Drop.  Drop.  Hurry.

Happy 10th anniversary to this photo.  Yes, our Hangry Hippo made her debut on July 23, 2010.  A decade later, social media fans are still trying to figure out her true nature.  “Hairless munching guinea pig?” asked one user recently.  “I had to double take,” said another.

Love to y’all.  Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.