Week 20

We did it - we grew veggies - you ate them(I hope) - success!  On a whole it has been the most challenging year of farming we have had.  We sincerely hope you didn't notice.  We did our best to stay true to our mission of selling high quality produce, but at times it was a struggle.  Mostly this is tied to some irrigation issues we had - it is a long boring story, particularly if you aren't a farmer, but it was stressful.  With the fall rains, it is mostly behind us.  However, it did contribute to the smaller size of both last week's leeks and this week's parsnips.  Small vegetables still taste great and preceding any vegetable with the word baby is trendy - so there is that.  I am pretty sure I am giving myself a pep talk here.  Let's talk about you.

You all are great.  Many of you stuck with us as we changed our model and some of you joined with out even ever having had our produce.  Thank you for trusting us to grow your food.  I did miss chatting with you about all the delicious things you made with your produce as that is one of my favorite parts of my job.  Even at market pick-up, I was often too busy to chat much.  If you made anything you really liked and it is easy to find the recipe on the Internet you should send me a link or snap a photo and email it to me.  Or you can put it in the comment section and share it with everyone. 

It has been the week of the squash as we try to eat a bunch of the varieties we are selling.  We ate two of the new butternuts we trialed and I made the butternut squash queso from the Thug Kitchen.  It was so flavorful.  They have a unique writing style, I assume to try to set themselves apart from other vegan lifestyle blogs, but be warned it involves a lot of swearing.  Because we are not vegan we actually made the squash sauce for the nachos and topped them with black beans, some grilled peppers and a little cheese.  The sauce softened the chips a bit and for that reason I think I enjoyed it more when I ate it the next day as dip for the chips. Thinned out just a bit I can see it being delicious as a sauce on some enchiladas. 

I still have lots of squash dishes I want to cook this season including spaghetti squash carbonara, a butternut and miso soup and these sweet potato cakes that I am thinking I can make subbing squash for sweet potatoes.

We are finishing the season with a really pretty box.  We trialed the red napa last year and planted it this year specifically for the CSA.  I apparently cut it kind of close on the seeding date but I scoped it out on Friday and feel pretty confident there are enough sized up for everybody.  Phew.  I made the most beautiful slaw of my life with a red napa, some shredded carrot, cilantro and a sesame vinaigrette.  It is mild and eating it raw gives you chance to really take in its beauty. 

Thank you again for supporting local organic agriculture! 

Parsnips
Rainbow Carrots
Butternut Squash
Spaghetti Squash
Shallots
Red Napa Cabbage

Kale - Large Only
Yellow Onion - Large Only

Week 19

Our stand at the market moved fully into fall this week with a big pile of winter squash at one end.  I love setting up the squash display although it means we schlep a lot of squash back and forth to market.  We have been eating a lot of the new varieties and I am hoping I won't burn myself out on winter squash before winter arrives!  Our days are still packed with harvest, but we should find time for more clean-up as the week goes on.  Our seed garlic arrived this week and our garlic beds are almost prepped.

I had someone hold up a bunch of carrots at market not long ago and ask me how we get them to all grow the same size.  I pointed out to her that there were bunches of other sizes in the pile but that we sort them as we clean them and then put similar sized carrots in a bunch.  She looked at me like I was out of my mind!  I though of it as I was writing this because I am hoping to give you all rainbow carrots this week or next week and they can be hard to sort and size because the different varieties grow so differently.  I think to maintain sanity we will just put those in your boxes without the tops and randomly sized.

Lettuce
Carrots
Scarlet Queen Turnips - These can be enjoyed raw but they become sweeter when cooked.  We slice them thin and sautee them in butter.
Silver Bell Squash - An older variety introduced in the 1950's.  We grew it maybe 5 years ago and liked it a lot.  It will slowly turn pink in storage but it stays delicious into the winter and stores well.
Leeks
Potatoes
Garlic

Arugula - Large Only
Peppers - Large Only