The farm ages gracefully and softly into late summer. Occasionally I still hear a cicada call with it’s buzzy whine. I still see birds active in the trees. I still see butterflies and flowers and the hot summer sun blazes in the afternoons. Summer isn’t over quite yet. At least it’s still feels like it this week.
We have until Saturday, September 21st to say that it’s still summer. On Sunday, September 22nd we will be hosting our free annual Fall Farm Party! Plan to come out the farm at 2pm and press cider with us between 2 and 4pm. We have a new motorized apple grinder this year. You can help by tossing apples into the grinder or twisting the arm on the press to squeeze the juice out of the baskets. If you’ve never had fresh-pressed organic apple cider, you’re in for a special treat. This is one of my personal favorite fall experiences. Our girls will be offering short Pony Rides for children under the age of 11 for tips between 2 snd 3pm.
Farmer Adam will be offering wagon ride tours of the farm between 3 and 5pm. He will pull you around the farm on a flat bed wagon and give you a tour of our 13 acres of organic vegetable production fields. Many of them ‘spent’, but still a lot left to see out there. And when else do you get to ride around on a wagon pulled by a tractor on a farm?
The famous potluck dinner begins at 5pm. Bring a dish to share. We set all the dishes out in the packing shed and line up for dinner. Plan to bring your own plates, cups and utensils if you can. We will have a washing station set up so that you can also wash your dish after eating.
New this year we be having a band play at 6pm. I have an old friend from Dubuque, IA. who happens to be an amazing songwriter and musician and has a band called River Glen. They are excited to come up and play some music for us at 6pm. As they are actual musicians trying to make a living at playing music, they do need to ask for a $15 suggested donation to stay for the band part of this evening. They came up to the farm last year and played for a few of us locals and I have to say that we were so impressed by their professionalism, unique sound, and wonderful music they played for us, we’re having them back again this year and opening it up to a wider audience! They will be playing in our newly remodeled upper barn space with hardwood floors and decent acoustics.
If you can’t make it to the farm party, let me at least take a brief moment to explain why we do this. Throwing parties is a lot of work. It’s a whole day of your farmer’s time preparing for, hosting and breaking down when we already have so much work to do.
Embedded in the philosophy of what CSA farms are, how they operate, and what keeps them alive is transparency. We believe that you, the buyers, eaters, consumers, or community members who are actively supporting your local community farm should be allowed opportunities to come to the farm, meet your farmers and take a good look around. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Farms began out of the notion that concerned consumers wanted to know who was growing their food, how it was grown, that it was fresh, and where it came from, exactly. If there was no interest in these aspects to our food, we could all subscribe to Hello Fresh, buy from Walmart Grocery or grab our stickered, bar-coded, shipped-in fruits and vegetables from far-away lands grown by we-have-no-idea.
When you come here you can get a sense of what a farm that produces 13 acres of vegetables and cranks out 400 CSA boxes every week for 23 weeks in a growing season looks and feels like. It’s not immaculate. It’s not the arboretum. But it is our home and it is a beautiful place in the world that we feel you deserve to see. We catch up on the trimming and mowing before you get here. We’re a real, alive and well, Small Family Farm. We’re making a living and raising a family off of farming. We have chickens and cows and ponies and sheep too that make us an even more official small family farm. We’re the living and breathing ‘real thing’!
Let’s celebrate on the first day of Fall this year community and agriculture! We hope you can make it!
Napa Cabbage- One nice head of Napa cabbage. Also called chinese cabbage. Stores best in a plastic bag in the fridge. Excellent for salads, but also commonly found in Asian soups and stir fry.
Red Potatoes– 2 lbs per member. Freshly dug potatoes scuff easily. Some of these are a little scuffed up because the skin on newly dug potatoes isn’t ‘cured’ yet and will easily peel off.
Onions- One to two small to medium sized onions per member.
Carrots- One pound per member. Keeps best in a plastic bag in the fridge.
Tomatoes- 5 lbs per member. A reminder that we pick any tomato with a ‘blush’. This means we pick any tomato showing any signs of color at all because they ripen so fast once they begin to turn colors. We recommend putting them out on your counter to ripen until they have reached the desired ripeness. Do not refrigerate your tomatoes unless the are getting over-ripe and you need to buy yourself some time. We also recommend removing them from the plastic bag as soon as you receive them. Condensation can build up in the plastic bag and cause the tomatoes to go bad. Herilooms of all colors, romas, slicers, oh my! It’s finally tomato season!
Hungarian Hot Wax Peppers- These are the longer peppers tucked inside your tomato bag. Hungarian hot wax peppers are the most mild of all hot peppers, although once in a while, there can be one with a little heat.
Green Beans- .28lbs per member. A weak final giving, but we didn’t want them to go to waste so we picked and bagged them for you!
Sweet Peppers- 3-5 sweet peppers per member. We grow a very wide variety of peppers on the farm. Some thin-walled red peppers and some thick-walled red peppers. The thin-walled peppers ripen earlier and faster and the thicker-walled ones take a little longer to ripen and come into season. We also are sharing some thicker walled yellow and orange peppers.
Eggplant- 1-2 per member. The eggplants seem to be growing slowly this year. We were hoping for larger fruits this week, but we decided to pick some of them a little smaller so we had one for everyone. We also noticed that if we left them sit on the vine too long to size up many of them were going bad. We worked hard to have one for everyone this week!
Brussels Sprouts Tops- So the greens this week are actually the tops of the Brussels sprouts plants! Can you believe it! If you love Brussels sprouts, enjoy this very rare seasonal delicacy. The very tips and tops of the plants. We ‘top’ the plants this time of year to tell the plants that it’s time to bulk out the sprouts because in about three weeks we will want to start harvesting the sprouts. It just so happens that these greens are delicious and can be enjoyed much like kale, chard or any other cooking green.
Keto Shredded Brussels Sprouts (It works for the sprouts, it can also work for the tops!)
Sauteed Brussels Sprouts Tops (for the more simple and easy approach)
Traditional French Ratatouille
Pioneer Woman Stuffed Pepper Casserole
