Share Notes Oct 28 & 30th 2021
CSA Share Notes:
We welcome this wonderful fall weather! This second cool spell of the season will do to the garden similarly what the first one did: It will slow down our warm weather crops (tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, beans, okra), and will speed up our cool weather crops (roots, greens, salad mixes, cruciferous crops)- especially with the nice rain we received! But many of our cool weather crops are a good bit behind.
This is the sort of scenario we often face in the fall season: the heat-lovin’ crops phase out really quickly once the weather cools, but if the cool season crops are not progressing fast enough or were not planted on schedule, then there can be a gap in the harvest. And that just might happen sometime in the next week or two. The fall crops have been planted very, very slowly this year due to how tremendously dry August and September were. Plus our new addition on September 10th made the following couple of weeks a bit less productive. Some crops are juuuust now finally going in the ground (some of our cabbage/chard/head lettuce/spinach mostly) and depending on how sunny or cloudy the fall is (crops eat sunshine!), they may not actually mature before the fall season concludes, and might actually end up going out in our winter season CSA. Of course there are loads of other fall crops nearing maturity in the coming weeks so you won’t feel deprived throughout the fall.
Now on to this week’s vegetable line up:
- Beans—still plenty! But they will stop producing soon. We usually get 3 good weeks of harvest off them, and this is week 3! Again we’ve tried to give each share a mix of all our colors: purple, dragons tongue, yellow, and green. lightly parboil (check for al dente tenderness just like you would for pasta) and dress olive oil and crispy fried garlic.
- Radishes— For the large shares only, Easter Egg variety.
- Okra— For the Regular and Mini shares only. A few tips were shared in last week’s blog. Check them out!
- Arugula — Generous beautiful bags of leafy greens this week! This arugula went to the large and regular shares. It’s a bit spicy and so, so delicious. Enjoy with nuts, cheese, and fresh fruit like apples and pears.
- Spring Mix— For everyone. flavorful and pretty. Mix with milder greens in a fresh salad if they’re too spicy for ya. They’re also great crisped up by roasting them in a hot oven.
- Sweet Potatoes— These lovely tubers come from our friend just 5 miles up the road from us, Tony Philips Sweet Potatoes. He’s a wonderful area grower, and while he’s not organic, he is conscientious of chemical use, and uses no sprout-retarding chemicals on the roots, which is commonplace in conventional potato production. We eat them all fall and winter, loading up on nutritious betacarotene. Enjoy!
- Eggplant— Large shares received all three types, while Regular and mini shares received Japanese and fairytale. If you’re new to cooking eggplant, see our cooking tips we shared 2 weeks ago week.
- Bell Peppers— Colorful and crisp, just a couple for eveyone this week.
- Italian Peppers— A sampling for everyone. These are a thin-walled sweet pepper, that are fantastic with dips like hummus. They also roast wonderfully and are excellent in place of bell pepper in any cooked dish. Find these on Sola Bread Co.’s Red Moon Pizza which they only offer seasonally.
- Jalapenos— A few for the regular and large shares.
- Poblanos—A few for the Large shares.
- Green tomatoes — Make a nice tart chutney, or fry them up!
Veggie Storage tips:
All your bagged greens, eggplant, beans, radishes, peppers, and okra will keep longest stored in the fridge sealed up in produce bags. Remove radish roots from their tops to keep the roots from getting rubbery. Keep sweet potatoes at room temp. Everything will need a thorough 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
