Indian Creek Farm

LOYAL FARMKETEERS:  Remember how we lost the entire peach, plum, and apricot crop this year?  It hurt.  But you have rallied to salvage the season by coming to the farm for apples, pumpkins, cider, and donuts.  We need a few more solid weeks in October.  Please join us while the picking is good.

Apple Picking – New this week are the blue-ribbon apples called Red Delicious.  They get the blue ribbons because they are Farmer Stephen’s favorite apple – and boy does he know apples.  “Red Delish is my wish,” says he, “O, the ‘Licious is so Vicious!”  You can also pick Red Spy (red ribbons), Autumn Gala, Snowsweet, Fortune, and Sir Prize; an abundant and beautiful crop of Jonagold; and, possibly the last of the Macouns and Spartans.

Pumpkin Picking – Your Dozen Dollar Bag!  Pick all the pumpkins you can fit into our new reusable bag for only $12!  You keep the bag and leave with a cozy pile of pumpkins.

Cucurbitastic and bombastic – This year’s capacious pumpkin patch is positively cucurbitastic.  That means full of herbaceous vines like pumpkins, squashes, and gourds.  Come pick yours!  This message is sponsored by Farmketeer Laura, who challenged us to use “cucurbita” in a Crop Alert.

Sunflower Picking – The pumpkin patch is full of sunflowers and they won’t last long.  Cut your own and take some sunshine to your home or office.  Stylie photo by local company and farm fans, @hookedproductions.

Donuts – ‘Nuff said.  They derive their savory-sweet powers from the simple fact that they are hoops of fried dough, brewed with fresh apple cider and topped with cinnamon sugar.  Saturdays and Sundays 10 AM – 6 PM.

Cider – Straight tree juice, nectar of the dogs gods.  Pressed here from fresh apples and pears.  No added sugar.  Not even pasteurized.  Just squeezed fruit.  In honor of Cider Week Finger Lakes, our fabled Orchard Ambrosia is on sale for full price!  What, do you think this stuff grows on trees?!

Veggies – Check out this exemplary haul from about a week ago by visitors @winegasm_ (Astoria, NYC).  By comparison, this week you will find that tomatoes are mostly picked out, although determined pickers can find heirlooms, cherries, and Marzanos.  Plenty of hot peppers, while bell peppers are still in a second wave of immature green-purple.  Plenty of eggplant.  U-pick eggplant sale = $1/pound on weekdays.

SPROUTS – These scions of Brussel never cease to capture the attention of folks who’ve never seen them on the stalk.  Come lop your own.  They work great as party favors, housewarming gifts, and bacon stirfry staples.

Puppet Show – Join us Saturday, October 8, 2016, for an all ages puppet show!  Free admission.  Gather at the playground for a 4 PM show by LilySilly Puppets, featuring singing creatures, puppet dancers, poems, and a whole lot of absurdity.  Live music from classically trained Matthew Ocone.  See the official Facebook event for details and weather updates.  Rain date is Sunday, October 16.  Seating is butts on grass.  Expect crowds on farm.

Playground – The playground hits prime time with Apple Mountain, ping pong, table tennis, swingset, climbing tractor, giant sandbox, and a picnic table for 28.

Farm Shirts & Red Bags – Amanda here at the stand says this shirt is ugly.  Maybe she is right.  Nonetheless, these handsome farmers are in the primes of their lives and they display their farm merch with pride.  Beauty is boring.

From Apple Fest to Happy Harvest – You guys made our weekend at Apple Fest a blast.  Now you can come to the farm any day of the week for the ongoing delight of October apple and pumpkin harvest.  We’re open every day til dark.  Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.

DEAR FARMKETEERS:  Water levels are historically low, but The ‘Creek is running all the way downtown.  That’s right, our unruly band of farmhands and ciderlings will be at the 34th Apple Harvest Festival on the Ithaca Commons, Friday through Sunday!  Rain or shine.  It usually rains.

Find us on the corner.  Last year was our first time and it was a whopper of a hoot.  Find our ramshackle booth where we will be slinging hot and cold cider, caramel apples, boring apples without caramel, pumpkins, Brussels sprouts, and glee.  The glee is free.  The caramel is gooey.

Meanwhile the farm is OPEN for apple picking.  This week’s fantastic crop is Cortland, Empire, Early Fuji, Liberty, Spartan, Jonagold, Macoun, and the last of the Macs.

The apple and pear display gets big!  Discover new types.  Weird ones you never heard of.  Some are amazing, some are meh, some are bleh.  You won’t know til you try.  This game has all the thrill of black-jack without the dirty dealing.

New this week — Pick a Bag o’ Pumpkins!  Pick all the pumpkins you can fit into our new reusable bag for only $12!  You keep the bag, and outfit your whole gang with pumpkins.  And yes we did fit all 28 pounds into that bag.  Booyah.

Pumpkins love company.  You don’t want to separate a single Jack- or Jill-O-Lantern from their mates.  They thrive in numbers.  Pick a bag full and your porch will sing.

Fresh cider served hot and cold.  This is plain tree juice, nectar of the dogs gods, a straight-shooting fruit bev.  Pressed here from fresh apples and pears.  No added sugar.  Not even pasteurized.  Just squeezed fruit.

Donuts.  These toroidal flavor poppers speak for themselves.  Line up at the Donut Hole (which is rectangular, as luck would have it) on Saturdays and Sundays 10 AM to 6 PM.

Sunflowers!  More than you can shake a flower at.  Fill your home or office with sun.  You will find them planted between the pumpkin rows and growing around the farm.

Professional flowers.  These sunflowers are professionals.  They go to work locally with @bizbloomfloraldesign.  Good enough for the pros, good enough for home and office.

Last wave of veggies?  Green and purple bell peppers, lots of hot peppers.  Tomatoes are more of an effort.  Heaps of eggplant.  Will this be the last easy picking weekend of the season?  Note the new reusable bag!  Good customer!

Pick, cook, eat.  This really is the time.  Veggies will soon go poof.  Apples, too.  Check out this drool-worthy Japanese curry by rising star Farmketeer @mapleandmatcha.  She used apples from the farm and grated them to “make it a little sweet bento buddy.”  Unimpressed Giraffe was unimpressed.

Playground for bigs and littles!  Cornell grad students have it rough.  You’re not exactly a student and you’re not exactly a professor.  You’re a tweener.  Here at The ‘Creek, we offer safe harbor to tweeners.  You can prance and frolic and be silly with no judgey professors being all judgey.  You can work on your second career as badminton champs, like Sanlin and Yolanda here.  Scientists by weekday, shuttlecockers of great pizzazz on weekends…  Go Big Rad.

Amanda’s Platypear.  Or Peartypus.  This is what happens when you work with fruit all day.  You start seeing things.  The fruit talks back.  Illusion and reality coalesce.  Please come give our farm stand folks compassionate human company.

Special event on the farm October 5, 4-6 PM!  Register now online!  This is a rare chance to talk shop and break bread with a nationally recognized cidermaker and your veteran neighborhood fruit tree farmer.  Autumn of Eve’s Cidery and Steve of Indian Creek will host “Twilight Walk, Talk, and Picnic Dinner” here at the farm.  You will tour the nursery, learn which apple varieties make the best cider, and finish with dinner and drink by The Piggery and Eve’s!  Space is limited and the event is NEXT WEEK, Wed, Oct 5 at 4-6 PM.  Register now.  Cost is only $15 per person including dinner and drink.  Click here to register online.

The event is rain or shine.  Come hang with us for an informal, educational, agriculinary soiree.  Help us celebrate Cider Week Finger Lakes!  Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.

DEAR CREEKNIKS, this Fresh Crop Alert is sponsored by the autumnal equinox.  Such a lovely word, equinox.  Tacked on the end is nox, night.  But the dark times are not yet nigh.  And they are farther still if you expaaaaand your autumn.  If you get outdoors for fresh air and fresh food.  Here are 10 reasons to be… here… now.  And 1 bonus for careful readers.

New apples this week – Pick Cortland, Empire, Sweet 16, Elstar, Pixie Crunch, McIntosh, and more varieties that are ripening as the days roll by.  Wander, mix, and match.

Even more apples – Down at the farm stand you will find the apple display filling with varieties you’ve never heard of next to farm fan favorites like Honeycrisp!

New this week – Pick your dream pumpkin!  Or warmup pumpkins for carving practice.  The field is ready and striped with towering sunflowers.

New this week – Fresh hot apple cider donuts!  You can waltz right up to the new “Donut Hole” every Saturday and Sunday, 10 AM to 6 PM, and get these poppable treats.

Fresh cider – Behind every good donut is an orchard-based cider.  We call it Orchard Ambrosia, and it is just fresh fruit, unpasteurized, no sugar added, squeezed and bottled here.

Family playground – The hilltop has become a favorite place to hang for picnics and games.  You’ll find a swingset (big enough for grownups), a giant sandbox, a real tractor to “drive” and an open playing field for running about.

Apple Mountain – True, it looks like a pile of dirt.  But Apple Mountain is the kids’ special place.  They run up and slide down and generally make a mess of their outfits.

Ping Pong and badminton – The playground just got more gamesy with 2 concrete outdoor tennis tables and a badminton court on the grass like Wimbledon.  Farmbledon, hereafter.

Pick vegetables – Veggie season is waning but the fields are still ready for pickers.  Plenty of bell and hot peppers, still delicious tomatoes, and lots of eggplant.  U-pick Japanese eggplant are on sale for only $1/lb thru Friday.

Cut your own flowers – Many varieties in many gardens around the farm.  But sunflowers are going nuts.  Pick your own, get a meditative smile.

Cidergarden – The “front porch” seating area enters its second season and you will find it a shady place to eat donuts, drink cider, and maybe even hear some guitars plucking.

Cider Week event at Indian Creek Farm – Please join us at 4 PM on Wednesday, October 5, 2016.  You will learn about cider apple varieties with Steve of Indian Creek and Autumn of Eve’s Cidery fame.  They’ll tour you around our tree nursery, sample cider apples, taste hard cider, and geek out good and proper.  Stay tuned to next week’s newsletter for details.  Happy fall and hope to see you at The ‘Creek.

“CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN PEAR.” That’s what one of our best Amandas calls her latest still life:

Hidden pear, indeed. If you didn’t pick Bartletts when we first sounded the horn, you’ve missed pear picking season. But you can get them at the stand.

The apple display is filling up beautifully. A favorite time of year for us. The orchards yield a pomological rainbow. Starting now you can get Honeycrisp apples at the stand.

Please pick now — McIntosh apples! They are dropping from the trees in the Vintage Orchard. Save them! Find the trees with ORANGE ribbons. The Mac is your classical, flexible apple: great for eating fresh AND making sauce AND pressing cider. Our man in Pocklington, Yorkshire, England, says, “McIntosh is without doubt one of the great North American apple varieties, typified by attractive crimson colours and a crunchy bite. The flavor is simple and direct, generally sweet but with refreshing acidity, and usually a hint of wine — often referred to as vinous.”

New this week — pick Autumn Crisp apples! You’ll find 20 trees in the Dwarf Orchard where the sign says cryptically, “NYS 674.” Here is how Autumn Crisp is described in Apples of Uncommon Character: “The apple is a dead ringer for Honeycrisp. Its cells shatter when you bite into it, like an apple-flavored Cheeto, spraying juice everywhere and leaving you with a mouthful of apple water. Wicked fun to eat…”

New this week — Pick Gala apples! You’ll find them at the west end of Row 15 in the Dwarf Orchard. Our homedog in the United Kingdom describes Gala thus: “Gala is a cross between Kidd’s Orange Red and Golden Delicious — a highly promising start. Bearing in mind that Kidd’s Orange Red is the offspring of Cox’s Orange Pippin and Red Delicious, Gala is effectively a union of three of the world’s most important and distinctive apple varieties.” Well said, royal subject.

Drink now — Orchard Ambrosia! We are pressing fresh cider several times a week and it gets better every time as the apple varieties ripen. Delicious cold or hot, it is unpasteurized with no sugar added and nothing but fruit.

You can still pick 5 kinds of tomatoes! Beefsteaks are plentiful and you can pick those for $1/pound during the weekdays. Roma, San Marzano, cherry, and heirloom (not included in sale) take a little more poking around, but you can still find them for your sauces, snacks, and recipes.

Big Beefsteak Box Sale continues! Get pecks of fresh-picked Beefsteaks for only $15 each, which is about $1/pound. We’ve done the picking for you. We’ll have these til we don’t. Time to load up, seriously. Tomato season will end abruptly without much warning.

You can still pick eggplant, peppers, and herbs! Let’s make the most of the season by harvesting the remaining heaps of hot peppers, plenty of eggplant, and herbs you can cut yourself. For inspiration, see this eggplant parm stack from Featured Farmketeer @weeeese, starring fresh tomatoes and eggplant from The ‘Creek. (The farm is on Instagram.)

Behold the DONUT HOLE. Yes, we just cut a hole in the barn for donuts. It is a rectangular donut hole. Very soon you will waltz up to this magic door and get fresh hot apple cider donuts. Kids will be able to peek inside at the donut machine, apple washing machine, and cider press. STAY TUNED!

Ping Pong! The newest craze at the playground! Outdoor table tennis with a view of orchards and distant hills. Two tables are already built. You will find paddles and balls in the wooden box next to the new… badminton court! Yaa haa! It’s grass like Wimbledon. The playground just got so much funner, especially for adults who don’t want to play TWUCKS in the sandbox or climb on the big TWACTOR.

It is still summer. But it is harvest season. Weekends on the farm are going to be livelier than a 2-tailed puppy. Sneak over during weekdays for quiet time in the orchard and the weekday u-pick tomato sale. Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.

DEAR ‘CREEKNIKS:  High apple season starts today!  You can pick McIntoshes off century-old trees in the Vintage Orchard and drink the first cider of the year.  Yes, Orchard Ambrosia is here!  Gallons and halfers chilled at the stand.

McIntosh apples are the harbingers of high apple season.  And they’re cute little buggers, showing none of the smugness associated with their Cupertino cousins.

Perfectly palm-size for a lunchbox.  Grab a Mac, groovy snack.  The trees are easy picking right now.  Please help us make great use of this crop which we’re lucky to have this year.

Liquid gold flows again!  The gang picked and pressed the first cider of the year.  Nothing but apples and pears, no added sugar, unpasteurized.  Plain old tree juice.

Foodies take note:  Orchard Ambrosia changes profile as apple season unfurls.  Taste it now, then next week, then the week after that.  New apple varieties — new flavor, aroma, mouthfeel, and finish.  But always refreshing.

The Big Beefsteak Box sale continues!  These $15 pecks are ready for your saucing and canning.  Works out to about $1/pound, which (absurdly) is cheaper than u-pick.  You can also catch the last day of the $1 weekday u-pick sale, which ends today, Friday, September 9:  $1/pound for u-pick beefsteaks.  Does not include Roma, San Marzano, cherry, or heirloom, which are rapidly diminishing as tomato seasons enters its final… er… finale.

So we celebrate the tomato.  Just look at this glorious gutbuster by our Featured Farmketeer, @mapleandmatcha.  A thousand times YES to your local tomato, basil, veggie pizzas.  We drool and bow before you.  Extra gluten, please.

Oh wait, what’s that?  Homemade tomato soup?  When the gastronome goes back to basics, it sure tastes like home.

Going international!  Soumen with fresh tomato wedges and a heart-healthy helping of freshies.

And finally this Provençal tian, shown in progress and served with couscous, starring tomatoes and squash from The ‘Creek.  Thank you for the inspiration, @mapleandmatcha!

A cute mosaic from another ‘Creenik, @clabs21.  You are welcome to hunt for everything you see here:  fall berries, assorted tomatoes, and cut-your-own flowers.  Our prime directive will be apples for the next 6 weeks, but you can forage for vegetables and other bits-n-bobs around the farm.

And this show-stopper from @lauroonbert.  Speaking of little dumplins, new kid shirts are here!  They’re awfully cute.  Made in USA.  Silkscreened in Ithaca.  Get ’em at the farm stand.  Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.

DEAR FARMKETEERS, if you get only 1 thing out of this fresh crop alert, it should be these 2 things:  pears and tomatoes.  We are in the season of pears and tomatoes.  And tomatoes.  And tomatoes.  And pears and tomatoes.  And pears.

PEAR season begins!  Pick your own Bartlett pears from trees along the dirt road.  Easy picking, lovely crop.

Now is your chance to beat the September weekend crowds.  The Sat-Sun crowd is going to bumrush the pear orchard.  That gives you today and tomorrow to sneak in.

Teachable moment — pears are unusual.  They ripen from the inside out.  You can’t tell ripeness by looking or squeezing.  Then suddenly it’s too late and they are smushy and rotten.  So here’s what you do.  Pick the pears now, just before they are fully ripe.  Put them in your fridge for 1-2 days, then ripen at room temperature for a day or so.  You can also kickstart things with the old brown bag trick.  Learn about ripening pears to perfection on this page and this page.

We have a monster bumper tomato crop.  Pick your own Beefsteak, Roma, San Marzano, cherrry, and heirloom.  Kids love how easy the picking is.  Our crates runneth over!

Weekday u-pick tomato sale!  Come pick your own tomatoes for only $1/pound thru Friday, September 2!  This  stupendous sale includes u-pick Roma, Beefsteak, and San Marzanos.  (Cherry and heirloom not included.) 

People are doing amazing things with the tomato sale!  These tomatoes traveled to their new homes in Harlem where they became sauces, soups, roasters, and canners.  Nice work, Chef Greg Silverman.

Pick now, eat now (and later)!  Sure these babies taste terrific fresh off the vine.  But the great promise of the tomato is a winter full of luscious, life-affirming homemade sauce.

Whoa.  Dried tomato skins!  Chef Greg reminds us to get creative and use the whole fruit, even if you peel the skins for your canning.  He says, “Grind ’em up and use ’em as tomato spice for soups, stews, and my favs… coating for pan-seared fish or rubbed over lamb shanks.”

Not feeling the u-pick spirit?  You can still get our Beefsteak Boxes for only $15 — which works out to about a buck a pound, and we’ve done the picking for you!  Please come get some, we’re swimming in them.  Spread your extras around the neighborhood or the workplace.

There is so much more at the farm right now.  Pears and tomatoes are the headliners, but you can get peppers, eggplant, squash, flowers, herbs, onions, garlic, scapes, and lots more.  These cuties made the trip to Harlem, but were scared to leave the apartment and explore the city.  Bumpkins!

New farm shirts!  Adult sizes are here in multiple colors.  Next week the new kid shirts arrive.  These are $15 each.  American Apparel.  Made in USA.  Doodled in Ithaca.  Silkscreened by Comet Skateboards in Lansing.  2-color art on front and back.  Flash your Creeknik Pride?

Is this the prettiest apple you ever saw?  We are currently between waves of apple ripenings, so stay tuned for next week.  Meanwhile let’s PICK ALL THE PEARS.  They will rot on the branch if we miss the fleeting moment.  Comedian Eddie Izzard has cried:  “Pears can BLEEP off because they’re gorgeous little beasts but they’re ripe for half an hour…”  (Alert:  language)  He talks about the squeezy-squeezy game that you really can’t win.  So take our word for it.  Time to pick the Bartlett pears!  And buckets of tomatoes.  Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.

LOYAL CREEKNIKS:  You are patient and you are kind.  You are soft but you are firm. You are quick to praise and slow to criticize.  You are always wise and often wonderful.

Time to reap what you sow.  Cash in those karma points for DEEP DISCOUNTS on juicy fresh tomatoes.  The Ithaca Tomato Council, pictured here after emerging from their plenary session, has approved the following deal exclusively for Farmketeers.  (Only the heirlooms abstained.  Typical.)

BIG TOMATO SALE.  Get $15 pecks of field run beefsteaks!  These are fresh and juicy specimens that we picked for you — no work required!  A peck runs 12-15 pounds, so this is even cheaper than U-PICK!  Perfect for canners, stuffers, juicers, and tomato fanatics who don’t want to go picking!

Act fast while they last.  Who knows when that will be?  As early as tomorrow there could be a catastrophic outbreak of blossom end rot.  Eww.  Or a cataclysmic attack of nocturnal tomato-smashing kangaroos.  That’s what farming feels like.  A real crapshoot and the dice are loaded and the house always wins.

But scared money can’t win and a worried man can’t love.  So let the gods do the worrying for once.  Give yourself an emotional vacation in Tomatoland.  Load up on juicy, local, fresh-picked beefsteaks and live your lycopene dream.

Meanwhile, 3 new kinds of apples are ready to pick!  Try Sansa, Zestar (pictured), and Akane.  These are bona fide “eaters” — fully flavored apples ideal for snacking.

For some of you this will mean stepping out of your Granny Smith comfort zone.  It’s okay, these apples don’t bite, try something new.  See these Sansas.  Ain’t they tasty?

Pick vegetables, too!   Remember that the farm is a one-stop shop.  Fruits, vegetables, flowers, herbs, and more.  Just pull in and pick a peck.  The locavore’s cornucopia:  apples, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, Swiss chard…

And stocked shelves at the stand.  We got lots of seasonal goodies.  From fresh taters dug outta the ground with our own hands to local maple syrups and honeys.  That’s right — honeys.  How do you say it?  Honies?

Well, farmies, that ain’t the half of it.  But we can’t sit here yammering all day.  There’s fresh crops to pick.  Oh, and one little tidbit of gossip to chew on:  Rumor says the first apple cider will be pressed NEXT WEEEEEEEK!  Stay tuned for Orchard Ambrosia.  Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.

DEAR FARMKETEER, if you have been a Farmketeer for a few years, you know that the tomatoes hold a secret August caucus.  No people, no farm dogs.  Tomatoes only.

Last night the tomatoes convened.  A midnight leak revealed the agenda:  Choose a date for their initial public offering.

Today we saw the broadcast.  TOMATO TIME IS NOW!

There are bountiful beefsteaks.

Fields rich with romas.

Vines with ample heirlooms.

And copious cherries.

The extended Nightshade family is here for the party.  You can pick Japanese, fairy tale, and classic eggplant.  The classic is rebounding from heavy picking; tons of the others.

Peppers are profuse.  Sweet bell, sweet Italian, cayenne, jalapeño, habanero, serrano, red rocket, and Thai chili.  The sweet peppers are currently green and purple, while red rockets and serranos are starting to turn red.  Everything else is still green.  Thai chilis are just starting to grow in.

Pick Ginger Gold apples.  For casual consumers, these are the first worthy apples of the year.  They are a tasty cross between Golden Delicious and Albemarle Pippin.  Download the farm brochure containing our Mapple™ to help yourself find varieties as you wander the orchard.

Pick William’s Pride apples.  Our first RED apples of the year.  Rich, aromatic flavor perfect for eating fresh.

Squash, herbs, and flowers.  Pick zucchini, yellow squash, basil, sage, dill, cilantro, parsley, and oregano.  Watch this silent Instagram short from the flower patch.  An essentially pointless movie, but perhaps a small counterweight to the great mass of outright fatuous internet content.

This week’s Washington Post shares a teachable moment for tomato touchers.  Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.

DEAR FARMKETEERS: A little rain does a lotta good.  Oh sure, it slakes the crops and softens your lawn underfoot.  But water from the sky magically… alchemically… turns one thing into another.  Behold the transformation.

Just last week, you saw this pokey old door swinging in the summer wind.  You weren’t sure if it was okay to go through.

A few nights of summer rain and voila!  THE PRODUCE PORTAL.  Open for business.  Come pick your vegetable haul.  The tomatoes are about to go supernova.

Now Picking:  Apples (yellow transparent and pristine); raspberries (first come first find); zucchini and yellow squash; Swiss chard; eggplant (although a gentleman picked 60 pounds so the patch is bouncing back); sweet peppers and hot peppers; tomatoes (we are picking it heavily to supply the stand but the patch is going to go BOOM with radical ripeness very soon); herbs of 7 varieties; flowers galore.  Now Stocking:  melons, nectarines, blueberries, peaches, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, potatoes, onions, garlic, scapes, syrup, honey.  Yep.

So this week is basically rinse and repeat — vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers.  As always be vigilant, for the signage team is up to their old tricks.

A place to park your arse and swing.  Cut a bouquet of flowers to take home.

One more thing to tell you all this week.  You are unswerving and steadfast ‘Creekniks.  We see it and we know it.  For your loyalty, you deserve the best in life.  Don’t let anyone tell you different.  Poo poo on them that poo poo you.  We got your back.  A token of our appreciation?  This diamond doorhandle on the Produce Portal.  We spared no expense.

The vegetables appreciate you.  The fruits appreciate you.  Come feel appreciated.  Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.

THE EGGPLANTS were born here.  The peaches are from PA.  So the eggplants are grooming the peaches, teaching them about local social mores and how to be a ‘Creeknik.

Peach says, “How do Ithacans pronounce the phrase public swimming laws?”  Eggplants answer in unison, “Fascism.”

Aaaaanywayyy.  Time to pick Pristine apples.  Come on, folks.  They’re not red but they are blushing with flirtatious buzz.

Even fewer people care about these, the Yellow Transparents.  It would be nice if a few of you at least tried to care.  They’re not Honeycrisp, but life is not a bowl of Honeycrisp.

Here’s something you’ll care about:  hot peppers are now open for picking!  Farmer Allie said, “Really only the jalapeños are ready, but people will pick them all anyway.”  So that sounds like license to party.  Hot peppers are open.

The moment you’ve all been waiting for — tomato season — is kinda sorta here.  Farmer Allie:  “Don’t sound the trumpets yet, because it’s just 1 kind of beefsteak, a few romas, cherries, and heirlooms.”  Listen for trumpets in the coming weeks.

Of course you have been hearing TRUMPets for months.  All that noise can be filtered out by meditating on these lovely fairytale eggplants.  Ommmmmmmmm.

These nonpartisan zucchini and yellow squash are similarly refreshing, sauteed and drazzled with parsley-garlic drizzle.

The raspberries are ebbing somewhat — lots of pickers have been bopping through.  You can still hunt and pick.

New attraction on the farm:  The Deer Door.  Go in and out as you please.  It’s the shortcut to the veggie field.

The signage department continues its Sisyphean labor of making the farm more user friendly.

But even the best laid plans need structural reconsideration.

And even the prettiest field of flowers is temporary.  Come cut them while you can.  It is August, Dear Farmketeers, and time’s a-wasting.  Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.