September Thirtieth
One of the most beautiful parts, arguably THE most beautiful part, of belonging to a CSA farm is the share in the bounty. There are many rewards to cultivating a relationship with a farm such as knowing who, where and how your food is grown. You’re able to eat seasonal produce within their regionally respectful season, and at the peak of ripeness. The food is deliciously fresh and you also know that your farmers pay close attention to the nutrient density of their soils thus the nutrient density of your food. But not every piece of fruit, root or leaf harvested on this farm looks quite like what you’re used to seeing on grocery store shelves. 
A foggy morning kale harvest.
Inherent in sharing the bounty on a CSA farm is reducing food waste. When we head out to the field to harvest, we take everything that is ready and share it with you. There is a fair amount of quality control that happens and plenty of food that never makes it into boxes that does go to waste, but we certainly don’t use the same standards for quality that a wholesale buyer would require. I don’t like to say that we have ‘low standards’ for what we let into your boxes, but we don’t have quite of the strict and harsh of standards that any wholesaler or distributer would require. This enables us to give you more food while reducing food waste at the same time.
When our crew harvests, we mix all of our premium quality produce with some slightly less perfect produce. This means, for example, that you are receiving all of the perfectly shaped and colored peppers along with some slightly misshapen and bi-colored peppers. Also, because our farm does very limited to no wholesaling on the side, our CSA members receive the cream of the crop. We do not shave off the best looking produce to sell to a wholesale market, as some other CSA farms do.
Also, we spend a large portion of our labor hours on harvest days actually harvesting as much food as we possibly can in the timeframe we have. We don’t always spend as much of that time washing everything you receive in the boxes. There are some crops that we don’t have the mechanical means to wash or have the time to wash as we’re spending so much time in the fields bringing in the good. You may notice that we don’t wash our potatoes or peppers, for example because we don’t have the right equipment to do this yet or have the spare time to squeeze it in since we’re so busy packing out huge boxes of the harvest.
It feels like an honor to share this food with you. We grow these beautiful vegetables because we love doing it. We love the life and the work and the community surrounding the work. We feel lucky to have you as part of this beautiful web of people who value simply good food and good farming practices. Thank you for letting us share this bounty in all of its forms with you.
Potatoes– Russet Potatoes this week! We were very happy with our Russte harvest this year. They sized up better for us this year than ever before. Russets seem to be particularly difficult to get to size up. We’re attributing the success due to good irrigating this summe and timely rain.
The plenty of Week 18!
Carrots- A nice one pound bag of the sweet scarlet nantes carrots.
Acorn Squash– Acorns are a famous winter squash for their recognizable shape, that of an acorn. They are usually the first to make it to market tables because they are an earlier maturing variety. These guys will keep best if stored on your countertop. Do not put them in the fridge.
Tomatoes- We’re getting down to the last of the tomatoes here folks! They are looking a little less perfect this week, but we’re okay with that. We want to eat as many tomatoes as we can before they’re really, finally, and officially gone and out of season.
Celeriac Root- This is the gnarley looking root in your box with the greens still attached to it. The greens will resemble celery a bit. The greens on your celeraic root can be used in stocks or soups to add color and flavor. Celeriac root keeps very well for months if you cut the greens off and store the root in a plastic bag in the fridge. Celeriac is hard and dense like a potatoe, but has a mild celery flavor. It can be eaten raw or cooked. There is no doubt about it, celeriac is ugly, but they are a treasure! They have a very long growing season. We start these little babies from seed in early March and baby them all season until they have grown up big and strong into these masculine monsters! They are a rare and unusual vegetable that used to be grown by all home gardeners in the early 20th century because they kept so well and so long in root cellars. They make wonderful winter food!
White Kohlrabi- Just when you thought that kohlrabi was over with, it makes a come-back! Remember that you can eat the Kohlrabi leaves if you absolutely love cooking with greens! Peel the other edge off of the kohlrabi and enjoy the crunch insides.
Sweet Peppers- Another four peppers per member this week. We’re hoping to have sweet peppers agian next week. We’ll see if we get them harvested before the frosts start hitting here.
Mini Sweet Peppers- They were a few mini-sweets in your tomato bag. Great for snacking!
Jalapeno Peppers- These guys are still hot. Two jalapenos per box this week.
Hot Wax Peppers- They guys are still hot too. Sometimes they are red, so be careful not to confuse them with your minisweets.
Lacinato Kale- A gorgeous bunch of lacinato kale floating somewhere near the top. For the kale lovers out there.
Garlic- To warm your heart.
Golden Beet- These little guys are a little difficult to grow. Their seed is expensive and we have typically had bad luck growing them in the past. The gold beets are nice because they won’t turn your dish pink or red when you cook with them. You can sneak them into foods. If someone in your family says they won’t eat beets, this is a great time to sneak one into a soup.
Cilantro- Cilantro is much more perishable than you might think. I recommend using it up as quickly as you can.
Disclaimer: This is only our best guess from what we see up and coming from field walks. Next week’s actual box may look slightly different from this projection.
Sweet potatoes, brussels, red cabbage, kohlrabi, collards, parsnips, rutabaga, leeks, butternut, broccoli or caulifower, tomatoes?, peppers?
Sausage and Apple Stuffed Acorn Squash
Acorn Squash with Kale and Sausage
