This week’s harvest: Beans, Cucumbers, Squash, Kale, Chard, Broccoli, Peppers, Pears, Onions, Carrots, Beets, Parsley, Tomatoes, Basil, Cabbage or Cauliflower (switch from last week)

Hi all, Pete here. With fall in the air it feels a bit like we’re winding the season down.  However there’s a lot more in store provided the frost holds off just a bit. Firstly, we need to talk about kale. Kale is so awesome. I really have no idea how anyone can eat a salad without kale. Arugula, baby kale and mizuna not withstanding, I can’t quite bring myself to eat a “lettuce salad.” There’s just not a whole lot of flavor or nutrition. At this point lettuce is just a vessel for your dressing so why perpetuate the charade?  Kale salads are so much more nutritious and really just more interesting. We put the juice and zest of a lemon, olive oil and herbs on our fresh kale salad along with whatever your favorite accouterments may be (toasted almonds, sesame seeds, pine nuts, cheese, fruit…). No: you don’t need to cook it. Stop kidding yourselves, kale salads are where it’s at. (And no. I’m not saying this because we’ve had difficulty keeping up with the labor of successive lettuce sowings). We do intend to hire another person next year specifically for head lettuce and salad mixes, but in the meantime: harvest kale!  We’ve planted plenty so blanch it, chop it and freeze it.  You’ll thank us come winter.

Pumpkins are really coming in along with winter squash, but they’re still a couple weeks out. Tomatoes are on the way out but we’ve still have a few slicers for this weeks share after a brief hiatus. Peppers. Oh man do we have peppers. One of the new varieties we planted this year is a yellow Italian heirloom. Normally we don’t brag, but at Farmer’s Market this past week, the taste of this particular sweet yellow pepper led one of our customers to tears while she reminisced about her childhood in Italy. Full disclosure; I tasted the pepper, and while I wasn’t quite moved to tears, it was in fact very good. So let us know what you think? This is the fun of running a CSA: we get to keep testing out new varieties to increase our offerings.

Lastly, it’s been a while since I’ve written the CSA, but I will go back to my standard mantra – please walk the farm. I know the strawberries are gone, but go pick some outdoor heirloom tomatoes or broccoli side shoots. You can see how far behind the tomatoes are – they are flowering like it’s the beginning of July! But the few you find that are ripe out there will be well worth the trouble, even if they’re ugly – especially the sungolds! While we know you’re pressed for time, it’s worth a walk through the brassicas (especially the broccoli) to experience the “hum” of the beneficial insects and pollinators that are attracted to the sideshoots. How brilliant of broccoli to produce flowers that attract the insects that eat the aphids that the leaves attract.  This is your farm, so feel free to explore and ask us questions!

Sincerely,

Pete, Lin and Reid