CSA Newsletter

A stand of dry corn by the mobile high tunnel

Greetings from the Garden!  This box has tomatoes, potatoes, broccoli side shoots, kale,  and cauliflower, zuchetta, onions, eggplant, ripe peppers, beets and carrots, salad mix, lettuce, melons. apples, and the first raspberries

Field Notes.  It has been a busy week! The shorter days and knowledge of what is coming pushes us forward!  Ken has been getting open spots ready for green manures, planting green manures, transplanting fall crops and preparing to move the mobile high tunnel to its next location for winter.

Although we have not had a killing frost,many crops are dependent on longer days, and are producing less and less.  It is time for Ken to pull them so he can get either a crop or green manures into that space.  He has been taking tomatoes off their supports, and soon we will be taking out the cucumber fencing.  Then he  will have the open space for his small hoopettes.  Many years he has as many as eighteen hoopettes in the garden.

Ken also is shifting animals and shelters to meet changing need - for example the pigs outgrew their shelter, so Monday Ken moved a larger shelter into their space and took out the smaller shelter - he will use that smaller one for the turkeys.  And once the mobile high tunnel is moved, the egg mobile will go in the space where the tomatoes were.

From the Kitchen.  Ken dug our early potatoes, so we have been eating the ones with blemishes.  New potatoes require less cooking time, so check them a little earlier than you usually do to test to see if they are done.  We have them as a side dish and also add them to soups.  Many people leave the thin tender skins on when they serve them.  I wince when they are conventionally grown as potatoes are usually heavily sprayed with pesticides. Since we don't use chemicals, these skins are safe to eat!

Fruit this week!  We often eat fruit for a break midway between meals.  The melons are two smaller varieties with wonderful flavor.  A friend said she was curious about this variety, but was impressed with the texture, flavor, and fact it was tasty right to the rind.  This week starts our fall raspberries - they are later than usual as we had those cool nights in July and not much rainfall.  This means the flavor is really concentrated.  Ken has been picking the different varieties of apples as they ripen.  Each variety has a season.  Enjoy! 'Til Next Week, Judith