Howdy Folks,

The strawberries are in! We are watering the fields of various veggies around the farm every day all day, as the sun is hot and the soil is getting dry. Chris is fertigating! What is that? Well it's when Chris goes to his collection of amendments and elixirs and creates potions. Whatever part of the life cycle the plant is in, this drives the needs of the plant, and therefore the ingredients in the elixir that Chris feeds into the dripline for the fields he waters at a given time. For example, when a potato is in bloom, their priorities are tuber setting, they want water and need macronutrients as well as micronutrients, and not a lot of nitrogen at this time, so Chris would most likely exclude or lesson the amount of fish emulsion from this particular watering cycle of the potatoes. Watering in the heat of summer happens throughout the day, on the hour every hour. Fertigation for crops happens weekly, watering is sometimes, daily or every other day depending on the crop and where it is in its life cycle. Note not all crops are ever irrigated, like the root crops. Although there are exceptions, like the carrots that were just direct seeded in the field. A drip line was laid on top of them to keep the seed bed moist in order to germinate sooner rather than later.

Don’t knock it until you try it right? The Calyx, on the strawberry is the leaf-like cap at the top of the berry! This is edible and nutritious!!! I had never even thought of this until the other day, Chris goes, “Did you know that the calyx on the strawberry has almost as much vitamin C as the fruit!”, huh… Well I googled it. Damn straight! ,” and it has significant amounts of dietary fiber, magnesium, as well as polyphenols and flavonoids, and there is also some potassium and calcium in there. By gosh, it hardly makes any difference in the flavor when you eat the calyx with the berry, then why not? In this day and age, when good nutrition is something we know makes life a little easier, go against the norm, save some time and stop cutting off those lovely calyx’s and eat the whole strawberry. It’s a little wild, I know, but this is a dare. We have been doing it since the other morning and haven’t stopped yet, although I must admit that my silly old habit of holding the berry by its calyx handle kicked in and I did stop at the handle of the calyx and put it down. Once I realized what I did, I ate the calyx on it’s own. Tasty, simple green! Please wash the berries, as we do not!

Your Farmers,
Chris, Aeros, and the Who Crew

Summer 2026 Week 3 Newsletter

Who Cooks For You Farm