Some like it hot and some sweat when the heat is on sang Robert Palmer. For many of us, that has been true this week. Looks like we jumped from winter right into summer. But, no complaints from me since this is preferable to the cold, dreary days we had in winter through most of May. And today’s forecast is more seasonable with lower temperatures and humidity. Just remember to stay plenty hydrated (water is best), and especially when outside, wear lightweight, light-colored, loose-fitting clothing.

You can find us on this week on Thursday at the Garden Shack Farmers Market from 2 to 6, at the Historic Lewes Farmers Market (HLFM) on Saturday from 8 to 12 and on Sunday at Hattie’s Garden from 11 to 2. If these times/dates do not work for you, please email Hattie to make arrangements, or stop by this week between 11 and 5 on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. Someone will be here during those time-frames to help you.

Available Produce & Herbs this Week

This week we are harvesting:

• Carrots — Slim early carrots are sweet and delicious.
• Early Wonder Tall Top Beets — These are nice beets with amazing greens.
• Arugula — Triple-washed and bagged, young and very tasty.
• Lettuce — Young Black-seeded Simpson and Red Sails loose leaf for quick salads. Triple-washed and bagged.
• Mesclun — with wonderful young Asian greens and beautiful lettuce. Triple-washed and bagged, of course.
• Red Russian Kale — This week’s selection will be very young and perfect for very quick cooking, or using in salads or juicing.
• Hakurei Turnips — This white salad turnip sets the standard for flavor.
• Herbs — Our “Mojito” Mint is unbelievable this year, and we are harvesting gorgeous Cilantro, fabulous Dill and beautiful Italian Parsley, delightfully fragrant Rosemary, savory Sage and true Greek Oregano.

Plants for your Garden

We continue to offer the nicest plants available at this time of year. The weather will be very reasonable for the rest of the week with cool nights and is a good time to plant things, as long as they get plentiful water to get started.

Tomatoes

If you have not yet put in your tomato plants, this would be the best week to get them from Hattie’s Garden. We have some very very healthy and vigorous hybrids, heirlooms and cherries ready to go into the garden.

This includes five varieties that are well-suited to container growing.

Peppers

If you want to add some flavor and perhaps kick to your food, then adding hot peppers is the way to go. We think hot peppers are gastronomically indispensable. Aside from flavor, hot peppers also have health benefits such as protecting your heart. This is because of capsaicin, an active component in peppers. Actual pepper heat is described by the convention known as Scoville units which are a measurement scale of capcaisin concentration. All of our hot peppers are now available, including Habenero for those who want to turn up the heat.

We have three fabulous sweet bell pepper plants for your garden. These are Flavorburst which produces crisp, juicy golden peppers all summer long, Purple Beauty, a colorful favorite, and Revolution, a medium sized plant that produces several giant peppers that are about as perfect as a bell pepper can get.

Not all sweet peppers are bell peppers. They come in all shapes and flavors which include Italian frying/roasting peppers, small sweet juicy thick-walled salad peppers and a few others. These include widely adaptable, Italian sweet Carmen Pepper that your whole family will love, the sweet & mild Cubanelle, the ruby red pimiento type Lipstick Pepper and the easy to grow & very popular Sweet Banana.

Herbs

We have several types of basil plants available, as well as Native American Smudge Sage or ‘White Sage‘, and our Marjoram is ready.

Flowers

All of our zinnias varieties are ready. In addition, we have Marigolds and the tall Double Click Cosmos (Cranberry, Rose Bonbon & Mixed), Gomphrena and Colorado Yarrow.

Yours in the Garden & the Markets,