October - CSA Box #9
The end is finally here! We are so thankful to all of our supporters throughout this growing season. It has been a challenge but incredibly rewarding to know that we are feeding so many people we love and care about nourishing, organic produce and showering them with pesticide-free bouquets!
Butternut Squash - Butterscotch - Supposedly this variety was going to be on the smaller side (around 1.5-2lb) but we grew some serious behemoths that were closer to 5lb! Some of these are still finishing on the vine. Since we were blessed with a ton of rain and unusually warm weather recently, we may have some more of these for storage!
Peppers - Jalapeño + King of the North
Eggplant - In their final weeks these plants have been producing like crazy. We are getting ready to clear out the entire hoop house but these plants clearly enjoyed their time in here.
Carrots - Kyoto - This sweet, red carrot from Japan is known to have a fruit-like flavor. In Kyoto, they are traditionally eaten during the New Year celebration and carved into the shape of a plum blossom in hopes it bestows fertility in the coming year. Given a little more time, these carrots have been known to grow up to 16 inches long (which we have seen firsthand in previous years)!
Kale - Dwarf Blue Curled Kale - If you can believe it, we grew an entire other row of kale that remains untouched at this point in time.
Tomatoes - Here is another mixed bag of some of our farm favorites. The fence line is still dripping in clusters, yet to fully ripen, but we could not pick these fast enough. There’s a lot of fallen fruit.
Beets - Cylindra - Touted as the best beet for canning, these beets have a more cylindrical shape which makes it easy to cut into uniform slices with less waste. Also included are a few Chioggia again.
Polish Botwinka Soup - We made a loose version of this and used fresh parsley instead of dill. Feel free to substitute a little kale or other leafy matter in place of the beet greens. Get creative! Cooking/eating is supposed to be fun!
Onion - Amber
Garlic - We loaded you up with 3-4 heads of our Music garlic to try to hold you over for a little bit. Treasure it! We will be planting our seed garlic very soon, and tucking them in some thick compost and leaves for the long winter ahead. Plenty made it into storage, so if you are ever in need of a fat bag of garlic hit us up!
Lettuce - A few of your boxes were graced with a small mix of our gourmet lettuce blend.
Lemongrass - This is most commonly used in Thai cuisine but also makes a great tea (and smells amazing).
Herbs
Sage | Mint | Cilantro | Parsley
Many of you may realize, this is not just food and flowers to us. This is a rejection of the mainstream notion that we can remain disconnected from the natural world and aloof from caring for the planet. We believe in self-sustainability and the deep power of food sovereignty that takes control away from the corporate food regime and institutions that try to manipulate the global food system. All that may sound a bit dramatic, but our actions make a difference and we hope you know you helped make a big one by supporting our small farm.
Thank you for voting with your dollar!
Although we are thrilled with the enthusiastic feedback and our own progress this year there were a few things that did not go according to plan.
We really wish we had our fall brassica crops (like broccoli and cauliflower), extra greens, and more melons that made it through to the end of the year. Our mushroom logs have also just started fruiting so it has been incredibly exciting to see some of the awesome varieties we will be able to offer in the future. Below are some photos of things growing around the farm.
This week’s bouquets featured:
Strawflower, Spider Flower, Dahlias, Aster, Zinnias, Celosia, Dianthus, Snapdragons, Marigolds
Thank you!
See you in 2024.
