October Fifth

This week I thought I would write a note about the seasoning of a CSA member.  How has this CSA experience been for you?  How confident do you feel in the kitchen using up these vegetables?  How new are these vegetables to you?  How many years have you been a CSA member?  Do you intend to give it another ‘season’ of your life next year?  I think there might be something magical about that number three. 

Your first year as a CSA member could be your hardest year, especially if you’re not an experienced cook, know your vegetables well or don’t have loads of time to research new recipes.  Your first year can feel overwhelming as the boxes keep coming, the kale keeps coming and your fridge fills up with your less-familiar vegetables that stare you in the face every time you open your fridge.  A lot gets used, a little gets wasted, and you survive a CSA season feeling a mix of amazement, bewilderment, and perhaps defeated or challenged. 

But a long winter goes by and your mouth might begin to water at the thought of fresh greens.  Your heart wants to support a local farm family and wants to buy local, organic and farm fresh.  So you sign up again.  This time, you’re prepared for the kale, you got recipes like aces up your sleeve.  You know how to wash a head of lettuce leaf by leaf now.  You knew about the impending cucumbers and tomatoes.  You were ready to make salsa.  You maybe stumbled on the collard greens, the kohlrabi and the dill bunches, but you thought it was cool and it’s okay if a few things make it to the compost pile.  You survive a second season wondering why you did that again, not sure if you’ll do it again or not. 

Then year number three rolls around and you sign up again because the Early Bird Discount was ending and you figured you better reserve yourself a CSA share, after all the world has taken some crazy turns and your food security matters.  This time you think you might be able to keep up, especially since you learned that you like spaghetti squash, radishes and salad turnips if they’re prepared properly.  The boxes keep coming and you chop and gobble like a pro.  Your favorite recipes are bookmarked on your computer, the pages in your favorite cookbooks open automatically to your frequented recipes because the pages are worn and well used.  Now, CSA is your thing, and those farmers sure are cute, so why quit now?

After three years of CSA-ing, it begins to feel like a groove.  Learning to respect the seasons of each vegetable like strawberries and asparagus in the Spring, cucumbers, zucchini and tomatoes in the summer and brussels sprouts, winter squash and sweet potatoes in the Fall, we begin to honor each vegetable in its turn. One begins to appreciate the humble radish and learns to love it.  You may even feel seasoned a bit after having been around the sun a few times receiving these boxes of bounty. 

A reminder that CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.  This style of agriculture is entirely sustained by our community.  We do not have a global, or national, or even regional market.  We need our local, immediate friends, family and community to support our work, eat these vegetables and see the importance and beauty in it.  Lucky for Adam and I that we also happen to love farming these vegetables and bringing them to your table.  With one Summer Share delivery left in this season, we hope you are considering joining us for another year of eating your way through the season with your weekly or bi-weekly CSA deliveries.  There are still a handful of Fall Shares and Thanksgiving Shares left if you’re wanting some storage veggies to help carry you into the winter months. 

What’s in the Box?

Tomatoes-  Absolutely amazing that we still have tomatoes to share this late in the season!  We’re thrilled to be packing 7.5 lb bags of tomatoes still into Week 19!  There was also a jalapeno stuck inside your tomato bag on top.  Watch out for that! 

Garlic-  One bulb of garlic per member.  Will keep nicely on your countertop through the new year, or in your fridge for longer storage, but I bet it doesn’t last that long at your house! 

Butternut Squash-  One large butternut squash per member.  Keeps best at room temp! 

Leek-  One leek per member.  These are in the allium family or onion family.  If you’re totally at a loss as to how to use this, use it anywhere you might use onions.  They do have their own unique flavor, but are commonly added to fall soups. 

Sweet Potatoes-  A 2 lb bag of sweet potatoes this week.  These guys have been storing in our curing room which is 85 degrees at 90 percent humidity to help them cure and bring out their sugars.  They will keep nicely at room temperature until you eat them up! 

Celeraic Root-  One per member.  The greens on the celeriac are also usable.  Use them in soups like celery.  Celeriac is wonderful once peeled and then you will see that it is white and dense on the inside similar to a potato.  Cube into small pieces and add to any soup or stew. You can also boil and mash celeriac with potatoes for a celeriac mashed potatoes.  It can also be grated raw into salads or coleslaws.  There are great celeriac hashbrown recipes as well.  Will need to be stored in a plastic bag in the fridge for long-term storage.  Celeriac are excellent keepers and will keep for months in a fridge in a plastic bag with their greens removed. 

Cauliflower/Broccoli-  Either two cauliflowers or 1 broccoli and 1 cauliflower per member this week.  Farmer Adam has been working hard to keep up with the harvest, getting them cooled and keeping the iced to get them to you!

Sweet Peppers-  3-6 sweet peppers in your box this week depending on how much room there was.  Some of the peppers may have had green on them as we had to pick peppers on the green side because of the frost last week.  You may have received either a red, yellow, orange or green pepper.  Some may have been only have ripened to color. 

Kale-  Smallish bunches of green kale this week because we wanted to send greens to you to add to your cooking this week! 

Sage-  Cute little bunches of sage for fresh use or for drying and winter use. 

Next Week’s Best Guess-  Cabbage, Butternut Squash, Sweet Potatoes, Tomatoes, Peppers, celeriac root, leek, cauliflower, broccoli, kohlrabi?,

Recipes

Butternut Squash Lasagne with Sage by Martha Stewart

Baked Creamy Celeriac and Potato Gratin from Delicious

Coconut Curry Soup with Chicken, Chickpeas and Hearty Greens by the Modern Proper

 Broccoli and Cauliflower Salad with Creamy Honey-Lemon Dressing by Natasha's Kitchen

September Twenty-Eighth

We’re feeling the shift on the farm this week from the summer weather to the cool, fall weather.  The crew is coming to work with their long johns, stocking caps and layers of warm clothing.  We are excited to be harvesting some of our favorite fall crops these next couple weeks. 

With frost in the forecast this week, are looking at possibly saying goodby to some of our favorite summer crops like tomatoes and peppers.  While frost this time of year is appropriate and always a possibility, we are a little sad that our harvest window for these crops is being cut a bit short as they would continue to produce for a couple more weeks if frost did hold off. 

We finished harvesting the rest of our winter squash last week and it feels good to have it safely put away in the packing shed for now.  We will move into sweet potato harvest this week.  We dug a few plant up for a sneak peek as to how they are looking.  The plants that we did dig up looked like they had large, beautiful, bountiful tubers attached to them.  We’re excited to dig up the sweet potatoes this week and see what the full harvest looks like.

Sweet potatoes go through a bit of a curing process after harvest.  They need to be cured in a heated room at 85 degrees with high humidity around 80-90% humidity for 4-14 days.  This curing process helps any cut end of the potatoes to heal, cure and dry properly so they don’t rot and it also develops the sugars in the potatoes.  We store them unwashed because once they are washed their shelf life is more limited.  We will have sweet potatoes in the last two CSA boxes of the season. 

This week we will also harvest our leeks and celeriac root for the last couple summer share deliveries.  We also have daikon radish, kohlrabi, storage cabbage, and more broccoli to share.  We did not have good spinach germination for our fall boxes, so sadly we will not be harvesting spinach for the fall boxes.  We do have some fun herbs like thyme, sage and oregano we would like to find the time to harvest and share. 

We are also looking forward to our Fall Potluck that we will be hosting at the farm this Sunday from 3-6pm.  We will be offering wagon ride tours of the farm for kids and adults alike.  We will have pony rides available being put on by our daughter and their horse-loving friends and neighbors for tips for the first couple hours base on interest.  There will be cider pressing as well using our old-fashioned hand-crank cider pressing machine where YOU will be needed for cranking on the handle to grind up those apples.  It’s fun for the kids to toss the apples into the machine.  There will be Turtle Stack beer as well! 

The Potluck will begin at 5pm where everyone will set out a dish to share.  We can celebrate the harvest and share a meal together down by our packing shed. Please bring your own dinner ware if you are able.  We will have a dish-washing station set up in the packing shed for washing dishes as well!  We hope you can join us for a fun afternoon on the farm this Sunday! 

What’s in the Box?

Tomatoes-  Another 7.5lb bag of tomatoes!  We expect that we will have one more giving of tomatoes next week.  With the frost this week our tomato harvest will be cut short a bit. 

Garlic-  One bulb of chesnook garlic for your everyday cooking.

Acorn Squash-  A classic winter squash variety.  These acorns have a dark green skin with a creamy, orange flesh on the inside.  We like to cut them in half lengthwise, discard the seeds, and bake them face down in a pan with a little water for about an hour. 

Onion-  One yellow onion for your everyday cooking. 

Brussels Sprouts-  We cut these brussels sprout stalks down and left the work of snapping them off the stalk to you.  Snap them off the stalk and store them in your fridge in a plastic bag. 

Sweet Peppers-  2-4 sweet peppers per box this week.  Many of the peppers may have some green on them this week.  We harvested peppers more aggressively this week knowing there was frost in the forecast in an attempt to save anything we could.  Peppers will ripen to color once picked a little sometimes. 

Hungarian Hot Wax Pepper-  These are also called banana peppers.  They are the smaller hot peppers that range from orange, to red to lime green in color.  They are delicious any color. 

Broccoli or Cauliflower-  Our fall broccoli and caluliflower are looking fabulous this Fall!  Keeps best in a plastic bag in your fridge. 

Lettuce-  One head of green leaf, red leaf or green buttercup lettuce per box this week. 

Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes- 1lb bags of cherry tomatoes.  Some of these tomatoes may need a little washing at home, but many of them were just fine.  There were some split tomatoes in the bins we had to pick up which juiced on some of the other cherry tomatoes.  We were thrilled to offer one more giving of this delicacy tomato! 

Recipes-

Stuffed Acorn Squash by Girl with the Cast Iron

Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce by Martha Stewart

Shakshuka (Poached Eggs in a Home-made Tomato Sauce) by Aline Made

Smashed Parmesan Brussels Sprouts by The Whole Cook

September Twenty-First

As we officially approach Fall on the farm with the weather transitioning from warm to cool this week I am reminded that we are in a time of transition.  Back to school season, tomato sauce canning season, apple-picking and cider pressing season and craving-for-pumpkin-bars season.  The colorful harvest, these stunningly beautiful, misty, shadowy days serenaded by the sounds of crickets and dewy mornings remind me how much I love Fall.  The leaves are beginning to fall creating a glittering, festive, magical scene where every moment feels like it calls for celebration. 

We are also a homeschooling family as well as a farm family.  In this season where the transition from “summer days” to “back-to-school-days” never feels appropriate I am always a little bewildered.  It feels even a little absurd at times that in the middle of peak harvest season when the harvest is heaviest, the tomatoes need canning, the apples need pressing and saucing and the world is a living celestial landscape, I am left wondering who thought it would be a good idea to put these children into classrooms at the sweetest (and busiest) time of year?  Certainly they were not farmers. 

The back-to-school transition is always a chaotic turn of events for the community.  All the families feel it.  Everyone is a little less patient, a lot more busy, and there is a general feeling of intensity that can sensed if not seen in the eyes of parents, teachers and children alike.  The gift to this transitional time is the early evenings.  Lucky for us all it is dark by 7:30 and while everyone is exhausted by the end of a long day or a long week, we are sleeping longer and deeper.  Thank goodness for the returning darkness or maybe we would all spin ourselves into a dizzy. 

So like a good home-schooling, farming mama, I get the math books out in the mornings.  We do a little math and I keep looking at our writing books wondering when we’ll have time to start our writing projects.  The children do a lot of independent reading throughout the day and we read together every evening.  We also make time for piano and violin every day somehow.  I dream of our cozy winter days together at the kitchen table doing our spelling, math, and writing projects while making bread and drinking tea. 

Truthfully, sometimes I feel a slight lamentation for a time when the seasons governed the community.  Surely there was a time when the harvest took precedence over all else?  These were harder times, I know, but perhaps they embodied an even deeper connection to the earth, the seasons, the plants, the animals and to one another at large.  What if your connection to plants, animals and seasons and the time you spend with them makes you happier and you absorbed knowledge faster when it’s received in smaller doses? 

For a short while longer we will continue to bring in the harvest until the weather shifts.  Perhaps when the weather turns cool and the call to be indoors near a fire on a cold day feels good, writing a story will come easier.  The longing to be outdoors will be narrowed to a much smaller part of the day and the children will sit better for their school work then.  But for this week we will bring in the butternut squash and start thinking about digging sweet potatoes soon and school work will be at a minimum. 

What’s in the Box?

Tomatoes-  7.5-8lb bags of tomatoes again!  Tomato harvest is still going strong!  We expect another week of big bags of tomatoes again and then hoping it will taper off a bit.  Tomato picking and bagging takes up a big part of the crew time each week!  We’re wondering if our CSA members are liking this many tomatoes or would like to receive less tomatoes?   

Spaghetti Squash-  These are the large yellow squash in your box.  We are giving the spaghetti squashes first because they do not keep well.  They develop little spots on them that eventually decay the fruits faster than any other winter squash variety we grow. 

Red Potatoes-  2lb bags of potatoes.  We decided to wash them this week so that bagging would go quicker.  We’re happy with this method and believe we will continue washing them! 

Cauliflower-  1 cauliflower per member.  These varied in size quite a bit.  Some were large and some were smaller. 

Eggplant-  1 eggplant per member.  You may have received two smaller eggplants of the Asian variety. 

Sweet Peppers-  1-4 peppers per member depending on how full the box was as it went down the line.  Most members received about 3.  Some boxes were so full we had to get creative on how to fit everything in this week! 

Cherry Tomatoes-  .7 lbs of cherry tomatoes this week.  We’re stoked to still be offering these gems this late into the season. 

Brussels Sprouts-  A very fun seasonal item!  We left them on the stalk for the novelty of it and because snapping them off the stalk takes tons of time.  Wrap your stalk in a plastic bag and keep it in the fridge that way or snap the sprouts off the stalk and store them in the fridge in a plastic bag that way instead to save room. 

Green Leaf Lettuce-  For your BLT’s!  We’re so happy to be offering lettuce this late in the season.  We should have another head for the boxes next week as well! 

Next Week's Best Guess:  tomatoes, acorn squash, sweet peppers, cherry tomatoes, brussels sprouts, lettuce, broccoli and/or cauliflower, potatoes, garlic

Recipes

Spaghetti Squash Fritters with Bacon and Chipotle Lime Mayo from Real Food with Dana

Roasted Tomato Basil Soup from How to Feed a Loon

Crustless Tomato Pie Recipe from Delish28

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Balsamic and Honey from The Cabin Diary

September Fourteenth

This week on the farm we are feeling the transition into Fall.  The cool, misty mornings turn into sunny, warm afternoons and then the temperature drops again into cool, dark, sleepy evenings.  I’m dreaming of pumpkin bars, apple cider and tomato soup with fresh baked bread.  The darkness in the evenings, the sound of the crickets and the warmth of the home contrasted with the cool outdoors feels assuredly like Fall. 

We had a long, slow gentle rain fall on the farm on Saturday where it rained all. Day. Long.  Miraculously the rain gagues measured only 1.5 inches.  We feel blessed that the rain fell so gently after hearing of other areas receiving over 5 inches of rain.  Then again on Monday morning we harvested tomatoes and peppers in the rain all morning which kept switching from drizzle to light rain all morning, but enough to keep us all focused under the hoods of our rain gear.  We have been lucky and haven’t had too many rainy Mondays this year where we needed to be harvesting out in the rain.  But you can’t win ‘em all! 

We’re operating with a shorter crew these days.  We lost a portion of our crew this back-to-school season when our teachers and students all went back to the classroom.  We’re down to the backbone crew who has been with us since the start of the season.  We are still looking to hire a couple extra people to help us finish off the season, but finding crew members for just the last few months has been tough.

In the farm house Grandma Jane has been helping to preserve some of summer’s bounty making tomato salsa for our winter enjoyment.  The house is steamy and warm and the stove is filled with canners, the counters filled with jars and the deck is filled with bins of tomatoes and onions and buckets of compost.  Such a busy time! 

It is looking like we will be blessed this week with sunshine and weather in the 70s and even 80’s again!  We will use the rest of this week to harvest our potatoes if the soil dries out enough.  We will continue to bring in the winter squash varieites and try to keep up with the tomato harvest which is heavy and strong. 

We are starting to think about sharing some of our fall gems for the last four boxes of the summer CSA season.  We have celeriac root, brussels sprouts, leeks, sweet potatoes and daikon radishes to share.  The sweet peppers are always a treasured item in these late-summer/early Fall days where we will continue to pick until the first frost hits.  First frost could come as early as late September, but if we’re lucky it could hit in early to mid October sometime.  Who knows!  Generally we get a little cold snap with a frost at some point that kills our peppers and then it warms up again after that which is a little frustrating. 

We are looking forward to Fall Potluck event as well on Sunday, October 2^nd which is free!  We invite you all out to the farm!  Bring a dish to share, your kids, and plates and silverware if you are able.  We will be offering wagon ride tours of the farm, apple cider pressing on an old-fashioned hand-crank cider press (roll up your sleeves), Turtle Stack beer and Apple Cider!  Our children will also be offering pony rides for tips on our pony, Rusty, between 3 and 4pm.   Fingers crossed for nice weather! 

What’s in the Box?

Tomatoes-  8-8.5lbs tomatoes.  Tomatoes are still hitting hard, but the peak has peaked.  A reminder that we pick any tomato with a ‘blush’. This means we pick anything with any early signs of ripening.  We need to pick them this way or they become too soft for handling and shipping.  Tomatoes prefer a 50 degree storage temp.  But once you receive them we recommend taking them out of the plastic bag and allowing the to ripen at room temperature.  Never put a tomato in the fridge unless it’s in danger of spoiling from being too ripe.  Refrigerators take the flavor out of tomatoes.  A mixture of romas, yellow heirlooms, pink heirlooms, yellow heirlooms, red slicers and yellow slicers.  You’ll receive a mix of varieties this season from all the different kinds we grow! See images above of funky heirloom behavoir.  If your tomato is shaped funny, it's probably an heirloom!  But their flavor is superior!

Carrots-  1 pound bags of carrots.  

Spaghetti Squash-  These are the big yellow balls in your CSA box with a hard stem.  Not to be mistaken for a melon!  Spaghetti squash aren’t the best keepers, so we like to give these first.  They are all the rage in the gluten-free world.  We like to cut them in half, discard the seeds, and then bake them face-down with a little water in a pan for about an hour and then when they are baked their flesh resembles spaghetti noodles! 

Onions-  One yellow onion per box this week. 

Broccoli-  The Fall Broccoli is starting and looking really nice!  We were so happy to be able to share this with you this week!  Needs to stay very cold to stay fresh!  

Potatoes-  2lb bags of red potatoes this week.  We don’t wash potaotes as we find they keep a little better with the dirt on. 

Cabbage-  A lot of these cabbages were absolutely huge!  Not a storage variety of cabbage.  This Artost variety is a more tender cabbage with airier heads.  Not as dense as a storage cabbage. 

Sweet Peppers-  3 Sweet Peppers per member this week.  You may have received either a red, yellow or orange bell pepper.  So far it’s turning out to be a really nice pepper year!  Yahoo!  Peppers prefer 50 degree storage like tomatoes.  The counter is a little too warm and the fridge is a little too cold, but pick your preferred spot or eat them up!

Cherry Tomatoes-  .6 lbs of cherry tomatoes per member this week.  I am loving that we are able to bag these cherries in paper bags this year instead of using plastic clamshells.  A little less plastic being used in the world! 

Green Curly Kale-  We picked these bunches of kale so you have greens in your cooking to sneak in this week.  We’re loving all the red, orange and yellow food, but gotta keep the greens going in too! 

Next Weeks Best Guess-  Potatoes, winter squash, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, onion, eggplant, beets?, red curly kale?

Recipes

Spagetti Squash Pad Thai from Once Upon a Pumpkin

Roasted Tomato Sauce Recipe from Homestead and Chill

Veggie Fajitas Recipe from Nora Cooks

Lemon Parmesan Kale Salad from Peas and Crayons