CSA Newsletter // Week 10

Greetings All,

I hope everyone had a good week! School shopping and errands to get ready for the big day back to school. Some of you are fitting in the last-minute trips while the weather is nice, kudos to you guys! Making it all happen takes a lot of energy, kids or not, I'm happy to hear so many of you guys are living it up and planning for a fun long-weekend for Labor Day!!

A touch of housekeeping:

- Remember that Labor Day is coming up and it's already next weekend! We do NOT deliver on Labor Day, Monday Sept 1st. We will be pushing everyone's boxes back by 1 day so we keep the same route for deliveries. Normal Monday Shares will be delivered on Tuesday, Sept 2nd, and so forth. The reason for this is because a lot of folks are still out of town on Mondays and we don't want anyone to miss out. If you're not available to pick up that week, feel free to submit the "donate" form on the bottom of the email that you get every week please. *This is the only CSA date change for the whole season so I hope everyone gets the message here!! A phone reminder for yourself would be a good tool for Labor Day week :)

-Add-on Share deadline is Sunday August 31st!

A lot of you guys have already signed up for the Add-ons which is great! For those of you who are interested, we have 3 Add-ons available: Honey, Apples and our Fall Shares!

The Honey Shares can come in two different package sizes, one with the 'basics' and the second (larger) options has some fun stuff like honeycomb, bigger jars of honey and even the honeycomb inside the jar, shown above. So it's really a great gift to yourself or someone special who needs a pick me up, and they come wrapped like a present with cutesy bags and tissue paper! ;)

Honey Crisps!

The Apple Shares- it's important to note that you will get apples regardless of whether you order the extra Apple Share. Everyone gets apples inside your CSA Shares when the time come. Of course, you guys understand it's different every season with the weather, but we expect to send these Apple Shares home with you the week of September 15th.

The $60 Apple Share is an additional box full of apples, all straight from the orchard. You can't go there and buy this quantity for this price but since we order SO MANY for our CSA Shares, we get the bulk pricing and offer it to you guys as well. It's a Family Share box full of apples! Great for snacking and also if you want to make apple sauce, dried apple slices for snacks, etc! The Fall Shares- this is for the folks who are looking ahead into the winter and know they want to take extra produce home to either store or process for the off-season. It's two bushel boxes full for $115 and comes with bulk quantities of winter squash, carrots, beets, onions and potatoes! Some of the produce can be kept cool (like potatoes) so you don't have to process them for the freezer or for canning. This also comes with a whole storage guide specifically for the Fall Shares so you can see how to store it long term, blanching and freezing, ideal storage conditions, etc.

If you want to get these Add-ons you can follow this link or click on the "Shop" Icon on our header website after you're done reading the blog post here.

Oh they're beautiful right?! Well, we just started selling our canners this past weekend because we basically just started harvesting a more consistent quantity. Even at our sale last weekend, we didn't sell any tomatoes because we were saving them for your CSA Shares last week!! We are now accepting orders for canning tomatoes!!! *It's the same link to the "Shop" as I have above, you'll see everything we have for sale from the farm including tomatoes and peppers! You'll notice there are smaller quantities of peppers available right now because a lot of our peppers are still pretty small unfortunately. By this time of year usually we're bursting with big bells, but just like everything else, the weather stunted their growth and we're waiting to have more bounty! We DO still have hot and sweet peppers available, as well as our onions. We want you to be successful and we want this canning experience to be as easy as possible for you!!!

There is a spot on the tomato form for your phone number and notes, so if you don't want them this week you can order and write "deliver after labor day", etc. We'll make sure we do our best to get the orders out this week ahead of the long weekend, when I imagine some of you will be doing your bulk salsas and sauces! Submit your order anytime over the next couple weeks and we'll deliver your tomatoes/peppers/onions etc. alongside your CSA for easy shopping!!

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT NEXT WEEK:

Jumbo and Family Shares: Sweet Corn, Broccoli, Golden Beets, Zucchini/ Summer Squash, Tomatoes, Gypsy Peppers & Basil!

Single Shares: Sweet Corn, Carrots!, Golden Beets, Cucumbers, Tomatoes & Basil!

Just a quick reminder- don't refrigerate your basil! If you don't have time to use it before it gets wilted. If you need ideas- try chopping it and adding to butter, cream cheese, or your favorite pasta sauce. Make a batch of pesto or simply puree extra basil with a bit of olive oil and freeze it in ice cube trays. It pairs well with tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, green beans and summer squash. Because it is so fragile, it is best to add basil near the end of a dish’s cooking time.

If you know you won't have time for it, consider dehydrating it! Remove leaves from stem and place on a piece of paper towel on a glass plate. Cover with another piece of paper towel. Microwave plate on high for 1 minute. Leaves will be dry. Crinkle them with your fingers and place them in a dry container, such as a Mason jar with a lid. If you'd rather let it dry naturally, put the washed leaves on a plate and put them somewhere that is out of the direct sunlight but still has good ventilation. It will take about a week of just sitting out but make sure you strip the leaves from the stems before you dry it for best results.

Photo from earlier this season because we don't have them pulled yet/ we want to wait for them to be fresh for you on Monday :)

Golden Beets- these are coming without the tops this time. It's that time of the year where the greens don't look as good and I'm not sending you a box full of stuff you won't be able use. Same with the carrots, these will all be topped this week and we put them in plastic bags like we do the beans because they soften really quick when they're exposed to air.

Use these like you would use regular red beets. Golden beets are a little sweeter and a lot of folks really like them because they still have the earthy tones but they're not nearly as messy to work with! You can peel these with a paring knife and use them raw in salads or you can roast them in the oven (or boil them) and peel them afterwards; but just an FYI folks don't generally eat the skins unless they're really little. Kinda like the red potatoes- you'd never peel baby reds because the skins are so thin you don't even notice them. When they get bigger the skins are thicker and less desirable in your dishes.

Cucumbers & Zucchini-

This is important for ALL Share sizes! We are gearing down with both of these varieties. Meaning we're harvesting significantly less and that's why we're alternating them now. Single Shares will get cukes and Jumbos & Family Shares will get summer squash (zucchini or crook neck summer squash). THIS COULD BE THE LAST TIME YOU GET THESE ALL SEASON. It always happens faster than we expect it to happen, and unfortunately the second planting of cukes is not going to be planted even though we already seeded them and have them in the greenhouse- it's too cold to plant them at this point. Some summers are still really hot, if it was 90 degrees for a couple more weeks those cukes would be producing within the month but at this point (with this weather we've been dealt) it's not worth the gamble.

PEPPERS Like I mentioned above, our peppers aren't where we'd like them to be at this time of the year but that's why we're alternating varieties and Share sizes- everyone WILL get them all!! It's just a matter of planning to make that happen. So this week we're going to harvest gypsy peppers for Jumbo & Family Shares. These are a thinner fleshed pepper but they are VERY sweet. Often times I rinse them and eat the whole thing as a snack. Pop it in one of my glass tupperwares with a bunch of different veggies and some hummus or ranch, makes a great snack! Or you could cut them into strips and top your salads with them. Keep them away from air flow, i.e. make sure you cover them in the fridge. Respiration is the air flow within your fridge and you want to protect all of your produce from that circulating air because it dries out your produce and causes it to wilt faster. This pertains to just about every variety you receive. For me, I keep an ice cream pail in the fridge with a bunch of random veggies, even my cukes/pickles, peppers, head of broccoli, etc. That way it's not exposed to the air and it'll stay nice and firm for you for a lot longer! Remember, we aren't harvesting until the morning of your CSA Shares. (Something I would like to point out is very unique to our operation- harvest to order basically). We want you to get a good value with your produce & that starts with the quality!!!

TOMATOES

Really quickly on tomatoes- we have a lot of romas on hand right now but not a ton of slicers (the larger traditional style tomatoes) because they're taking longer to ripen. We are harvesting some so we'll be plugging those into your CSAs and documenting that as we go so everyone gets each variety (a few times each, I'm sure!). With the tomatoes ripening slower, it means that we'll have less bulk at one time but hopefully a longer tomato season this year!! We also have grape tomatoes as well, so we'll be sneaking those in as we're harvesting enough (I would guess for next week, not this week). Don't forget to get your orders in for canners if you'd like to process some for the off-season!

WRAPPING IT UP: We are staying positive here, trying to keep our chins up while we're taking all these blows this season. I feel like we're in a good place this week; it's been a hard few weeks back to back but we are hanging in there! I think the hardest part of this is that we care SO MUCH about the experience we provide our Members that it's stressing Ben out a lot. A lost crop in the field translates to a personal failure. When you tie your livelihood, all your hobbies, and your family to the farm you put a little extra stress on yourself but I keep reminding him that we've done the absolute best we can. There is not a single day that goes by and we say "good enough". We're working hard and trying to produce some nice fall crops for ya'll and we hope you really enjoy it! If you see Ben at the stand please give him some words of encouragement, he never gets to talk with a lot of our CSA Members so it'd be nice if he heard it from you guys.

One fun thing about this time of year is that we're going to be seeing a transition between the warm summer crops and the cool fall crops. We're going to see more root crops coming in soon and fun stuff like spaghetti squash (one of my favorites though my children are still reluctant!). We have so many fun varieties to fit in the next handful of weeks here that towards the end it'll be a struggle just to plan what we are going to be harvesting to fit in the boxes each week. The last few weeks I actually start with a check list of everything I want to fit in and then we harvest accordingly! Needless to say, there is a lot to look forward to!!

Farm Stand will be open next weekend Friday 9-6, Saturday 9-6, Sunday 9-5 & Monday 9-5 (Labor Day!).

It's at Hudson's Hardware Hank in Zimmerman just a mile off of 169 basically. There is road construction, but the round about it almost finished and hopefully it'll be open by next weekend- it's really hurt business up there this summer (We're at about 50% of what we did last season at this time). If you are headed up for the long weekend, consider stopping for some brats, patties, bacon, hot dogs (with no fillers!) or snack sticks to help keep the kids quiet in the car ;P Veggies are a staple, of course, we'll have a big line up there, you could also grab a gunny sack for your party! Easy side dish and no one can say no to freshly harvested sweet corn!

Also I can't wrap up the newsletter without adding... Fiona finally had her babies!! We are going to be selling her kittens to help pay for her spay so we don't have anymore cute surprises in the future. If you're in the market for a little sweetie, shoot me an email so we can get in touch! Kelsi (our youngest daughter) has offered to pay for all 4 kittens out of her own money so we can keep them all, but I've explained that's not how it works..

These little babies will go to homes where they are cuddled and loved. They'll be ready in a couple months or so, we aren't in a big hurry to 'get them out of here' but I don't want them going outside with free-reign because it's wild outside and we have predators on the farm here who would love to find one alone. Little Momma is doing so good and she took a break from the kittens this morning to go outside and hunt for a bit, regardless of the kids having bowls of food and water right next to her and then they also have treats that they give her all day long lol, she wants for nothing. She's got a little pretty princess set up here in our living room and she's the star of the show lately! Thank you for joining us for this season, I hope this week's line up has some fun veggies for you to enjoy!!!

Eat Good & Be Well,

~The Farmer's Wife