It’s hard to believe the middle of August is already here! We’ve certainly enjoyed our summer, though it has seemed to go fast. Below is a list of what is available this week at Hattie’s Garden on Thursday, August 14 from 2 – 5 p.m., and on Saturday, August 16 at the Historic Lewes Farmers Market (HLFM) from 8 – 12 noon.

We Give Thanks

We want to thank all of you who helped to make the HLFM tomato festival an incredible success this year! What a gorgeous day and what a great crowd of people tasting all kinds of tomatoes! We had a wonderful time–it was a lot of fun and a good time was had by all.

Fond Farewells

On a sadder note, it is just about time to bid farewell to our summer helpers. Many of you know Anna and Elaina who have been helping out at the market (and in the garden). They will both return to college next week. We sure are going to miss them. We will also miss Anna’s brother, Jack, who has remained in the background on the farm doing a whole lot of heavy lifting and keeping the trains running on time. Anna starts her second year at William and Mary, Jack will begin his first year at MIT and Elaina will be in her final year at Pennsylvania State University where she is majoring in Horticulture. You can wish them well at their last market this Saturday, August 16.

Tomato Update

Well, I got back from the farmers market on Saturday, had some rest and felt good that we had taken every tomato we could find along with us and brought back almost none. Imagine my surprise today when I went to pick a few cherry tomatoes that I could see ripening from the kitchen window. Oh my goodness. I picked three big bucketfuls and was only halfway finished with the cherry tomatoes! These cool nights have been wonderful for our tomatoes and this week’s harvest looks to be even more bountiful than last week’s! Maybe Sunday’s supermoon had something to do with this.

What’s Available This Week

The following items will be available on Thursday at Hattie’s Garden from 2 – 5 p.m. and the HLFM on Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon.

For those of you trying to get salad greens and finding them sold out when you arrive at the farmers market, you can either come out Thursday for salad mix, get there early on Saturday, or email Hattie and she will reserve for you. Alternatively, just hang in there, since as the fall approaches we will again have ample lettuce. And, this week, our arugula should satisfy everyone! Lettuce might be limited, but only for another week or two.

• Tomatoes – Large and medium, Orange, Pink and Red hybrids. We also have mixed cherry tomato pints as well as pints of just Sunpeach, Jasper and Black Cherry.
• Peppers – Our peppers are also finally coming along. We have a nice selection of sweet and hot peppers to include nice fruity Mariachi (see description below), the mild Anaheim, sweet Cubanelle, nice Purple Bell, sweet Banana, Czech’s Black Hot (very similar to a Jalapeno, but much prettier), sweet mildly-hot Anchos (also referred as Poblano), and lovely Cayenne.
• Eggplants – Italian and Asian style are both available, but in limited quantities. If you want one, you may want to come by on Thursday afternoon to be sure to get it.



• Young Arugula – Lots and lots of young arugula this week.
• Mesclun – Limited this week.
• Loose Leaf Lettuce – Limited this week.
• Flowers – This week our zinnias are phenomenal and will be prominent in our bouquets. We are also cutting a lot of gomphrena, plenty of ageratum and cranberry cosmos. We have just a few lisianthus and we are now cutting a beautiful red and pink yarrow called Cerise Queen. Come by the house or our tent at market and have a custom bouquet created for you or pick out one of those already put together.

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The Mariachi Pepper is amazing. It is an All American Selection from 2006 that I somehow must have missed before. Its heat has a rich, fruity underbite with hints of melon. It makes an excellent salad pepper and we really like this one.

Shaped like the lipstick pepper some of you may be familiar with, Mariachi is just a bit larger. It has a thicker, nice juicy flesh. We will definitely be growing this one again.

It measures just 500 to 600 on the Scoville scale, so it has the heat of less than half that of a pablano or anaheim and only one tenth that of a Jalapeno. The heat is just enough to add some flavor.

Yours in the garden and at the table…