July 7, 2010: This week’s featured fruits and vegetables are: kale, cabbage, zucchini, potato, cilantro, peaches & apricots mixed, tomatoes & beans.

From farmer Pam:

Every step was taken to make sure the produce made it through the day. Please know that we hope all is well but there may be hidden damage due to the heat. Please store your produce in the refrigerator. Try to use up things soon – everything was really ripe & ready to eat.

A note about the peaches & apricots – they are real ripe – eat soon, some of the fruits may have a whitish powder on them – this is – diatomaceous earth – used to deal with chewing bugs & also sun scald, this is an approved product for organic production – you should wash it off before eating your fruit – this a food grade product.

Tomatoes – some of them may have split – irrigation was used to offset the problem of the heat – this caused some splitting – these tomatoes are fine to eat – they just don’t look pretty.

I’m trying to imagine what it would be like to keep crops alive in this extreme heat, and that reminds me what it must be like to be working outdoors this summer. I am so grateful for the passionate and dedicated farmers and workers who carry on in some of the most unforgiving circumstances.