Hattie’s Garden delivery/pickup service continues to bring you fresh and wholesome food. We are now taking orders for the Saturday, August 8 Service.

The deadline for placing your order is Tuesday at 8PM. We suggest you place your order as soon as possible to be sure you get what you want, as we do run out of some things.

A Note from Hattie

The dog days of summer are upon us. The heat is taking a toll on the produce we can make available to you. Did you know that at around 90 degrees and especially above that temperature, many of the things we try to grow simply don’t cooperate? Young blossoms drop from things like green beans and often from tomatoes and flowers, as plants preserve their available energy to manage their own cooling systems. Lettuce and salad greens simply won’t grow, or become so bitter they are inedible.

Plants close their stomata (leaf pores) to keep water from evaporating. This effectively shuts off photosynthesis as their can be no exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen. Unfortunately, this can also attract more pests as the immune system of the plant is weakened.

We manage this the best we can with water and mulch, and afternoon shade where possible. The greenhouse atmosphere created by climate change means the temperatures also will not cool at night enough to give plants the break they need. This increases the incidence of blossom drop and compounds all the problems caused by the high daytime temperatures. Their are some vegetables and flowers that fair better and are more “heat tolerant” and those are the ones you will see on our order form today.

Even as we move through these hot and humid days, we look forward to the shortening day length, and cooler temperatures on the horizon. In anticipation of that, fall planting begins this week for many of us, that is as soon as we dry out enough from the Isaias storm!

New Hours at the Garden

This is a reminder we have new hours for shopping at the Garden. We want to avoid the heat of the afternoon for the next several weeks. We will be open just two days during the week, Wednesday (August 5) and Thursday (August 6) from 10 to 1. We will also open for general shopping during our order pickup time-frame on Saturday from 9 to 2 on August 8.

What’s Available through the Online Order System

The following items are available now to order for pickup or delivery on Saturday, August 8.

This week Hattie’s Garden is harvesting lemongrass, which is a wonderful herb used in Thai and Southeast Asian cooking and also for medicinal purposes. The light lemon flavor blends well with garlic, chilies, and cilantro. The herb is frequently used in curries as well as in seafood soups and with chicken. It is also used to make tea or as an aromatic herb, or leaves can simply be boiled in water to create a wonderful cleansing aroma throughout your home. Lemongrass tea is made by pouring boiling water over leaves and allowing to steep for 10 minutes.

We are happy to have plenty of cherry tomatoes for you this week. We sell them by the heaping pint and they are delicious.

This week Hattie’s Garden also is harvesting heirloom purple-strip hard-neck garlic and beautiful basil.

Totem Farms brings their popular microgreens and Fresh Harvest has nice hydroponic salad ingredients. Dittmar Family Farms has whole and half chicken and chicken liver. Nancy’s Cafe has delicious fresh-to-order gourmet food.

We also have free-range chicken eggs from Twin Post, a great assortment of fresh mushrooms from King Mushrooms, more than 50 types of homemade jams & jellies from Backyard Jams and Jellies, Alaska Cod, Alaska Rockfish, Coho and Sockeye Salmonn from AlaskaWild Seafoods, fresh honey from Chrissy’s Bees, and fresh cheese from Chapel’s Country Creamery.

Watch for our email on Tuesday morning for what is available for during the week for pickup on Wednesday (August 5) and Thursday (August 6) from 10 to 1. That list differs a bit from our order form list as things change here on a day to day basis.

Yours in the Garden,