2024-04-08 newsletter

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm,

We still have high diversity as we are actively harvesting most of
the crops we have grown this season except cauliflower, green beans, and
avocado which have all but ended. Citrus too is mostly winding down
except for some grapefruit and late season oranges like ‘Valencia’ and
‘OLL-8.’ The past week we enjoyed slightly cooler and drier weather.
Even though we took a break from extreme heat, the tomato production has
not slowed down with over 1,000 lbs. harvested on Friday and another
1000+ lbs. harvested today. We harvest 3x/week.

Tomorrow is the Naples St. Johns Farmers market final market before
closing for the season. We are grateful how this market served as an
option for people in the Naples area and as an alternative to Bonita
Springs where the Saturday parking is challenging.

We plan to be at Captiva as usual tomorrow and still deciding on
whether we will continue through May there. The Bonita market we plan to
be at through the end of May.

Here is our schedule for this week:

TUESDAY CAPTIVA MARKET : Tuesday, 9am-1pm at South
Seas Island Resort , Captiva. Buy directly from the
stand or place a preorder online by Sunday, 8 pm and
pick it up at the market.

TUESDAY NAPLES ST. JOHN’S FARMERS MARKET (LAST ONE OF THE
SEASON!) : Tuesday 9am-1pm at St. John’s Episcopal Church,
Naples. The St. John’s Farmers Market is located at 500 Park Shore Dr.,
Naples, FL 34103, just south of Pine Ridge Rd.

THURSDAY FARM PICK-UP & HOME DELIVERY FOR SW FL (NOT
INCLUDING SANIBEL AND CAPTIVA): Please place an order online
before TUESDAY, 8 pm. For farm pick-up on Thursday, please come to 14840
Old Olga Rd., Ft. Myers, FL 33905.

SATURDAY BONITA FARMERS MARKET **** ****: Saturday,
8am-noon at the Prom enade Shops at Bonita Bay. Buy directly from the
stand or place a preorder online by Thursday, 8 pm. If
possible, please pick up after 10:30 for pre-orders as
this will reduce the long line that often forms early in the morning.
When picking up, you are welcome to skip the line and go down the south
side of the tent to the back of our van where Annika will help you get
your order and grab any add-ons you might want.

Orders can be placed online at 12seasonsfarm.com
** **

This is what we are harvesting:

• Strawberries
• Mulberries
• Summercrisp Lettuce
• Baby Butterhead Lettuce
• Large Leaf Butterhead Lettuce
• Romaine Lettuce (limited by the heat)
• Arugula
• Curly Kale
• Flat Kale
• Mixed Kale (multiple varieties)
• Swiss Chard
• Zucchini
• Cucumbers
• Eggplant
• Sweet Italian Bull’s Horn Peppers
• Broccolini
• Cabbage
• Carrots
• Green onions
• Large onions
• Celery
• Cherry tomatoes
• Campari tomatoes
• Heirloom/Specialty tomatoes
• Red Slicing tomatoes
• Round radish
• Daikon radish
• Cilantro
• Dill
• Curled Parsley
• Flat Parsley
• Lemongrass (preorder only)
• Ray Ruby Grapefruit
• Papaya
• Starfruit (very limited)
• Banana
• Sunflowers
• SW FL Saw Palmetto Honey
• SW FL Wildflower Honey
• Strawberry Butter

Mike, Justine, and Annika at the Captiva market last Tuesday.

Saturday my cousin visited me with a friend who had a drone. He took
some photos with the drone as seen in photo above. Fun to see the farm
from this view!

Jungle boys in the tree finding mulberries!

We have been harvesting a lot of the Sweet Italian Bullhorn peppers
like this red one above, called ‘Carmen’.

And this orange one called ‘Oranos’. I prefer to grow the sweet
bullhorn types as they don’t seem to suffer from the sunscald issue the
larger bell peppers do. They are especially sweet and delicious.

We continue to have good root crop production on the radishes, beets,
carrots, leeks, and onions.

But what we really have a lot of right now is tomatoes!!! These are
going to restaurants tomorrow.

The kids enjoyed checking out the eclipse today with special
glasses.

Here is Alexios with Simeon and Annika at the Bonita Farmers Market
last Saturday. Alexios is our main tomato harvester and as mentioned
above, he picked over 1,000 lbs. of tomatoes on Friday and again today!
We are grateful Alexios plans to remain with us through this spring and
part of the summer to help finish up this season and begin the next
before he returns to Greece.

We look forward to serving you again this week with beautiful, fresh,
and healthy produce that serves as a feast for the palate, the body, and
the eyes!

Danny, Vicki, the kids, and the 12 Seasons Team