CSA Share Notes:

• Turnips—Our favorite turnip varieties are ready first: Hakurei Japanese turnips and Scarlet Queen turnips. The Japanese turnips are a fresh-eating salad turnip that is so delicious. Even if you think you’re not a turnip fan, give it a try! I can chow down on one of these like an apple, but it’s even better sliced with salt and lemon. The lovely red turnips are great roasted, in a soup, or in our turnip and grain salad. The turnips are pretty little, as they’ve really been unhappy with the wet garden conditions. We wanted to wait another week and let the Japanese turnips get bigger for you, but their leaves were beginning to show signs of decline and we are expecting another 2 inches of rain tonight so they’ll only get worse in quality, not better. We needed to pull them now, even though small. They’ll be tasty and tender, though!
• Sweet Peppers—You are all getting a mixture of our Italian varieties of peppers. They taste almost exactly like bells but are slender and lovely.
• Hot Peppers—Large shares only.
• Beans—Dragons Tongue for the large shares, and tri-color mixed beans for the small shares. These are so fantastic. We’ve been making delicious salads (without salad greens) made from peppers, fresh beans, cucumbers, red onion, toasted pumpkin seeds or walnuts, feta cheese, and a drizzle of oil, vinegar, and cracked pepper. Fresh and wonderful.
• Squash—It’s all winding down pretty quickly, but we still harvested a pretty good amount for you this week.
• Zucchini—Again, this crop is winding down, but hanging in there for you for a little bit longer.
• Cucumbers—We expect another week or two of great cucumbers, if frost holds off. You might have slicing varieties, pickling varieties, or a little of both!
• Sweet potatoes—Our fall staple. Fries, mashed, roasted, soup, the options are endless.

Veggie Storage tips:

Sweet potatoes will prefer to stay at room temp. Everything else  will keep longest stored in the fridge sealed up in a bag.   All root crops should be severed from their tops to keep the roots from getting rubbery, then sealed up in the fridge to stay crisp.   Everything will need a gentle washing before cooking, but leave the dirt on until you’re ready to use them to prevent spoilage.

We’d love to hear stories and recipes of your culinary adventures this week. Send us a note or post a comment of how you’ve used your CSA share.

Your farmers,

Jess & Justin

Large Share

Large Share, from top left: Scarlet Queen Turnips, cucumbers, zucchini, jalapenos, Dragons Tongue Beans, summer squash, (bottom row) Italian Peppers, sweet potatoes

Small Share

Small Share from top left: Hakurei Turnips, cucumbers, zucchini, summer squash, (bottom row) sweet potatoes, mixed beans, and Italiam Peppers.