The Final Week of Summer Share CSA deliveries brings a kind of bittersweet feeling. We are welcoming the slower pace of the waning day length, yet recognizing the end of the work we love and the food that has been so bountiful and plentiful all summer long. Mostly though, I feel a strong sense of gratitude for everything the farm and the community has had to offer us this season.
The CSA model so beautifully embodies everything a community and a small piece of land can accomplish when they work together. Without the help of all of the amazing pairs of hands that come to this farm and work, the people like you who have chosen to give their hard-earned dollars for a CSA share, and the desire that Adam and I share for organizing this symphony of food production, there would be one less family farm preserving a piece of land and the healthy little ecosystem inside it.
We all love the idea of there being more organic farms on the countryside, cleaner soils and water in our communities and the preservation of a small family farm. These things are all possible simply because people like you, yes YOU-reading this exact newsletter, care so very much about them. Because you care about them and support them, they exist. And for all of this I honesty and genuinely feel gratitude. It makes my heart sing to see crews of mixed ages, skill levels and backgrounds, all come together on a weekly basis and show up to stick their hands in the soil and get their clothes and nails and boots dirty while picking spinach and peeling leeks on a foggy October morning.
The farm will soon turn a page. We will finish up our 12th season running our little CSA. The leaves will soon all be fallen from the trees, the ground will soon be frozen, the carrots and the sweet potatoes will all be harvested and safely stored away for winter sales. After the first of year, we will begin marketing for our 13th season running our small CSA. We’ll get a couple short months rest before greenhouse season begins again and the earth’s little trip around the sun starts anew. 
Fast approaching is my favorite Holiday, Thanksgiving. I love the idea of there being a Holiday that causes us all to pause for a day and recognize everything the earth has offered us. In the days of semi-trucks and ships shuttling food across the globe at record speed, we no longer experience hunger and famine the ways people once did in this country. We have access to every kind of fruit and vegetable at any moment-free of worry that it might not be there for us tomorrow. But if we honor the pause that Thanksgiving day offers us, we can try to reconnect with how blessed we truly are.
So Thank You, from the depths of my heart, for an amazing season of bounty that feels like a celebration to me each year that we accomplish it together. I feel honored to do this work. I feel thankful to share it with you. I feel blessed to have this life and look forward to doing it all over again next year. We hope you will join us!
Brussels Sprouts- Yes, these are the very funky looking vegetable that grows on a stalk. They have the little sprouts that go all the way up the stalk. We left the snapping-them-off-the-stalk part for you as well as any additional cleaning you desire for these. One member told us she never learned to love Brussels Sprouts until she had them roasted in the oven. Check out our roasted Brussels Sprouts recipe in last week’s newsletter.
Broccoli or Romanesco- A gorgeous head of either broccoli or romanesco for you. We didn’t quite have enough Romanesco to give everyone one. We filled in with Broccoli for those that didn’t get it. Romanesco is the lime-green broccoli or cauliflower-like vegetable that is fractal looking. Romanesco spirals up to a point at the top. A really fun vegetable to grow. It has a very long season and comes on somewhat irregularly and sporadically, so it can be difficult to time for a CSA giving.
Cauliflower- Very nice heads of cauliflower for everyone. We really struggled with getting these guys in the boxes this week with all of the other items to tuck in there.
Butternut- This is probably the most-loved winter squash variety of all. Everyone seems to know this variety of squash and loves to eat and cook with it. The texture is smooth and consistent, the flavor is sweet and nutty, and the sheer color of the flesh once cooked up is warming and comforting. Squash keep very well on your countertop for months.
Bell Peppers- Several peppers per member or enough to fill out the box. Not necessarily colored bell peppers this week. We knew frost was coming, so we went out and clear-cut the pepper plants no matter the size or color of the pepper. Adam reminded me that some people do love to eat green peppers. All peppers will turn color eventually; green peppers are just ‘unripe’ peppers that would turn color if left on the plant long enough. Peppers freeze very nicely! Just slice them up, de-seed them, and freeze them in zip-lock bags! No blanching or extra work required! We love to use frozen peppers in the winter months on pizza, fajitas, quiches or even thaw them and roast them if you like them that way.
Spinach- .4lbs A heavenly bag of tender spinach for all this week. This spinach was first-picking greenhouse grown spinach. We plant greenhouse spinach in the Fall to have spinach for winter harvest. This was the first picking which always means the leaves are more tender. Yum!
Parsnip- 1# We had a great parsnip year! Many of the parsnips this year were big and beautiful as we always strive for them to be, but we have had years where many of them did not size up well. Parsnip sold in stores are many times coated in a paraffin wax (a plastic wax) to help them keep and to prevent them from oxidizing. We strongly feel that coating your vegetables in paraffin wax is un-necessary-even for storage life. Taste the difference. These are so fresh!
Rutabaga- These are not turnips! A rutabaga does look quite a bit like a large storage turnip-but I assure you these are rutabagas. Rutabagas are wonderful if you just peel them, mash them and toss them with butter like a mashed potato-and your family will never know the difference! They’re just a little less starchy than a potato. We also love them cubed into a soup or stew.
Sweet Potatoes- Two pounds of fresh, lovely sweet potatoes. This year wasn’t our best sweet potato year. We still got a nice harvest for our CSA members, but many of them did not size up quite like they did last year. You can eat sweet potato skins.
Celeriac Root- Our celeriac roots are huge this year! These are not the most beautiful vegetable in the world, but they do get major brownie points on our charts for a few different reasons. Which are: they are a low-carb root veggie that adds variety to what is available locally for vegetable offerings in the fall. They are fantastic keepers. Store these in a plastic bag in your fridge, and they wil keep for months! They also offer a very smooth and subtle celery flavor to your soups and stews that we have really learned to love. Don’t judge this book by its cover. It really is an awesome vegetable!
Leek- Take a leek? One big ol’ leek for each CSA member this week. Leeks are in the onion family. You can use them in your cooking like you would use an onion, but they are also fun to feature in a potato leek soup, fried in coconut oil until crispy and sprinkled on top of your soup or salad or really any dish. Have fun exploring leeks if you’re new to using this vegetable. The most commonly used part of the vegetable is the white stalk, but they greens are also edible. They get a little tougher as you go up the leaves.
Potoato Leek Soup with Celeriac Root
Celeriac Potato Hashbrowns with Jalapeno and Cheddar
The Great Dane Inner Warmth Squash Peanut Stew
Smoky Romanesco Celery Root and Broccoli SoupSmoky Romanesco Celery Root and Broccoli Soup
