2024-06-10 newsletter

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm,

We are starting to harvest mangos! The season is beginning a little
later as we had a poor fruit set on the early variety, ‘Glenn.’ The
‘Pickering’ is now just beginning which is mostly a midseason mango, but
we are catching the early fruits off those trees. We don’t have a lot
available but might be able to fill some of the online orders.

The vegetable season continues to wind down in the heat, but we are
still pleased to have a modest offering that includes delicious tomatoes
and peppers, some herbs, kale, and fruits like lychee, papaya,
passionfruit, banana, and mango.

We will be back on Sanibel and Captiva this Tuesday with 2 options–
home delivery and picking up your 12 Seasons order at MacIntosh Books +
Paper.

This Thursday, as normal, we will offer farm pick-up and home
delivery.

We will continue to have a Saturday market at the farm, 8 am to noon
for the month of June.

We learned recently that we are not receiving emails for the past
many months that were directly replied to this newsletter. We are
working on a solution. We sincerely apologize for this. If writing an
email, please start a new email and write directly to
[email protected].

Here is our schedule for this week:

TUESDAY MACINTOSH BOOKS + PAPER PRODUCE PICK-UP AND HOME
DELIVERY FOR SANIBEL AND CAPTIVA RESIDENTS : There is a free
produce pick-up of your online order at 12 Seasons Farm at MacIntosh
Books + Paper between 11 am and 2 pm on Tuesday. We also have Tuesday
home deliveries on the islands. Place a preorder online by
Sunday, 8 pm.

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 12 SEASONS FARM MARKET : Saturday, 8am-noon
at our own farm for the month of June. Buy directly from our own produce
stand and/or place a preorder online by Thursday, 8 pm.
Use the farm entrance at ******14820 Old Olga Rd. Ft. Myers, FL
33905
**

Orders can be placed online at 12seasonsfarm.com

If you ever need assistance while picking up an order, directions to
the farm, or have questions, please feel free to text or call Danny at
239-229-3579.

This is what we are harvesting:

• Curly Kale
• Flat Kale
• Mixed Kale (multiple varieties)
• Swiss Chard
• Cucumbers
• Eggplant
• Sweet Italian Bull’s Horn Peppers
• Broccolini
• Carrots
• Cherry tomatoes
• Heirloom/Specialty tomatoes
• Red Slicing tomatoes
• Daikon radish
• Cilantro
• Curled Parsley
• Flat Parsley
• Italian Basil
• Lemongrass (preorder only)
• Lychee
• Papaya
• Banana
• Mango
• Roselle
• Sunflowers
• SW FL Wildflower Honey
• Strawberry Butter

Mango season has begun!

We still have around 1 week of lychee season remaining. Here are
Andreas and Joe getting the lychees separated from the branches and
grading them for orders.

Here is passionfruit vine growing on an avocado tree. The
passionfruit on the farm is just about to start ripening. We have just
started to eat them. They bear 2x year, once around now and then in the
winter for a couple months.

This makes my favorite tropical juice drink. When I use to travel
more in my previous work to Central America, I would order “parcha” (aka
“maracuyá”) juice. We know it as passionfruit and it is very refreshing
in salad dressing or juice or smoothies

We are grateful for a new roof on the farm house. It was in desperate
need of a new roof after Hurricane Ian and we were waiting for material
costs to come down and contractors to have more availability. We are
glad to have this project knocked off our list.

Alexios and Andreas planting the next round of papayas. We plant
every year even though papayas are perennial in order to have more
steady production. Once planted, they usually bear in less than a year
and then produce for 1-3 years.

We planted close to 100 papayas in this area.

We still have a lot of carrots. I have been impressed with how well
they do in the heat.

On Saturday night, I took the 3 older kids and 2 of their friends,
Graeme and Cameron Watkins (their sister Elena works at 12 Seasons) to
watch the Florida Everblades play in the Kelly Cup Finals at Hertz Arena
in Estero. The kids really enjoy watching ice hockey and it was fun to
see the Everblades win the championship. We got to see and sit super
close to David and Sherry Shoot, long time customers and friends of 12
Seasons Farm!

We enjoy the Saturday markets at the farm. It is definitely a slow
pace, family affair! Thanks to all of you who came last Saturday!

Many of you have gone to cooler parts of the country and closer to
family and friends, but for those of you here in SW Florida, we hope one
of our options this week works to get fresh organically grown
produce!

Take care!

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