September - CSA Box #8
We are thrilled to offer a wide variety in this box. Harvest season is here! While many things are slowing down in production, a few things just won’t quit. Many of our plants are starting to finish, and we have plenty of squash and pumpkins becoming more and more visible as they change color and the vines die back. It’s always fun to see what lurks beneath the green, lush foliage as things give way.
Watermelon (Orangelo) - Save as many seeds as you can! We will take them and grow you more melons next year! We started with at least 10 plants and probably had only two survive. They usually do pretty well, but this year was an exception. Of the three Orangelos we harvested, one was an impressive 27 pounds! They are incredibly sweet and delicious. We wish we could have had them a month sooner, but who doesn’t love one last taste of summer in September?!?
Squash - We are finally seeing the waves of zucchini we expected. Unfortunately, not always on the weeks we are supposed to deliver. A few went unnoticed and ended up the size of baseball bats. One was over 7lbs!
Honey Boat Delicata made it into a few crates this week. If you did not receive a Honey Boat, you were team Futsu which is a Japanese pumpkin we fell in love with recently. Last fall we grew way too many of these, filled our cellar, and had to get creative. We had pumpkin bread, curries, stir fry, you name it. We fried it, pureed it, sautéed it, and decorated our homes with it. They have an adorable small stature, bumpy skin, and greenish orange color. It’s pumpkin season baby and this one is edible! Fruit typically ripens in winter storage so letting these linger a little longer shouldn’t hurt. Both the skins on these are edible as well.
This walkthrough of the perfect tempura was legendary and really took the Futsu to the next level. We never knew we were so fond of pumpkin until we tried it with this dipping sauce.
Watermelon Radish - Ideally we would have pulled these a little bit sooner because some of them are the size of softballs, but their beautiful coloration is worth every second spent in the ground. This was our first time growing these and definitely will not be our last. We have one other type of radish growing that hopefully will finish and make it into the final box.
We recommend this as a beautiful pop of color in a salad or slaw. Our plan is to pickle some of these in the future!
Peppers - This week is a mix of hot and sweet. The King of the North is the big, bad bell pepper you are used to in the grocery store. Picked young they are green and gradually mature to a sweeter red. Among the smaller varieties are jalapeños in shades of red and green, as well as our red and orange picnic peppers which are great for snacking, slicing, or sauteeing.
Eggplant - We were blessed with big eggplants this week and we hope you are still giving them a shot. Notoriously underrated and unappreciated we love growing these and are pleased with how well they did in our hoop house this year.
Carrots - Finally pulled some longer/larger carrots from our raised bed this round. We pulled these in the rain on Sunday, and they are truly one of the most satisfying veggies to harvest when the ground is soft. A swift tug upward, when gripping low on the greens, revealed with a satisfying pop a decent-sized carrot. Friends, soup season is upon us. Mix up some mirepoix (carrots, onion, celery) and get cozy!
Kale (Curly) - You’ve probably never eaten this much kale in a summer and we commend you on your hard work. If you aren’t shitting green, there’s still more work to be done. Sprinkle it on pizza, chop it fine in a slaw, or blend it on high so it disappears into a smoothie. Freeze it if you can’t eat it all right away. Still not sold? Next year, sign up for our compost services and we will return it to the earth where it will do some good for our future garden.
Here’s a tasty list that happens to feature a salad with some Watermelon Radish!
Lettuce - Our speckled lettuce was picked early due to the heat pressuring it to bolt again. Unfortunately, we had to pick it in the rain as well. Eat them first if you can. We did notice some sad spots and for that we are sorry. Succession planting lettuce is a tricky sort and something we plan on perfecting in the future.
Tomatoes - This week is bonkers with tomatoes of all kinds. One of our personal favorites is the Moonshadow, not just because they are purple, but due to their spicy flavor that is great raw. Runner up is the Roma for its delicious texture, versatility, and petite slices to top sandwiches and pizzas, or as the star in a Caprese. We sprinkled in an array of just about every variety on our vines and probably only picked about 1/3 of the ripe ones. Again, we ran into rain woes here so there may be some burst ones in the bag. They swell and split if not caught at the right time so we were really racing against the clock to get these pulled. Some still erupted once we got them inside, but look at it this way, they are at maximum juiciness.
Sauce - This was our second experimental batch of sauce this season using a new method. Partially dehydrated tomatoes were run through a food mill to remove the seeds and skins. Then we pureed the onion and garlic into that and heated it on the stove to a boil. Finally, we added fresh herbs to each of the jars and poured the sauce over it before sealing. It is not canned and should be stored in the fridge for up to one week or frozen until ready to use. We recommend roasting the Romas you received, crushing them, and adding them to the sauce to thicken things up. The consistency was still a little thinner than we had liked. We plan on dehydrating the tomatoes for longer and playing around with the recipe but we hope you enjoy it!
Keep frozen until ready to thaw. Remove the herbs before serving. (Contains: Gilbertie Paste Tomatoes, Roasted Music Garlic, Caramelized Italian Parma Onion, Olive Oil, Himalayan Sea Salt, Isle of Nexus Basil, and Oregano)
Potatoes (Russian Banana Fingerling)
Onion (Amber)
Garlic (Music)
Herbs
Sage
Please note: We also included some decorative gourds and mini pumpkins that are not intended for consumption. See below for an image or reference here.
This week’s bouquets featured:
Celosia, Dahlias, Sunflowers, Aster, Zinnias, Amaranth, Gomphrena, Dianthus
