CSA Newsletter // Week 12

Greetings All,

I hope you guys had a great Labor Day weekend & hopefully everyone is getting settled into their new schedules!

FROST ALERT: This is nuts but a friend of mine who farms in Big Lake said she got frost two nights ago and it burned a bunch of her flowers, that's wild, it was barely September! Well, as you know the frost can come on late in the spring and wipe out whole crops (like our first pickle planting this summer, for example), or it can come earlier in the fall than we'd like, and it can try to cut the season short. If you have plants outside, you should cover them tonight!! If you have a garden at home and want to prevent the potential frost from wrecking your goodies, you can run a sprinkler over the garden and it'll keep everything over 32 degrees. I just looked and it's the perfect storm for frost. It almost always comes on a full moon (which is tonight!), and if it's a clear sky, it always gets colder than predicted. Tonight's cloud cover looks like 10% and the temps are in the 30's so there is a fair chance for frost.

You guys know this car accident has been terrible for us this season adding extra stress and taking Ben away from his normal jobs of field maintenance (because he's covering my jobs), BUT that also means that the weeds have taken over in areas that we usually stay on top of. The weeds are a blessing in disguise!! If there are weeds all around your plants, there is very little risk of the frost damaging squash on the ground or even tomatoes in the field. So next time your garden gets out of hand just tell people it's frost prevention and you planned it, Haha! To be clear, I am not concerned about the crops here because we have a lot of weeds out there, and most of the crops that we have left out there are somewhat frost resistant, like the cabbage and broccoli for example, it's all stuff that can take a little burn from frost and not be affected. The peppers are being hugged nicely by the weeds, so they're protected, and the corn is planted on a hill so hopefully the low ground doesn't freeze. All these factors make a difference, and we won't know how the cookie crumbles until tomorrow morning.

The biggest things I'm concerned about at this point is that stuff quits growing at these temps! Corn isn't going to be as big anymore, peppers and tomatoes will ripen but they're not going to grow a ton at these temps. We'll leave them out there anyways, because we only harvest fresh/what we need every day, but I hope we get some more warm days before the end of September!!

HONEY If you purchased honey packages, please know that we planned on getting you the honey this week but it's not ready quite yet. I'm hoping to get it this coming week and have it in your CSA Shares the following week.

APPLES I just placed our order with the orchard for almost 220 BUSHELS of apples!!! They're planning on harvesting next week and bringing them here on Thursday or Friday next week so we're hoping to have them for next week's CSAs!! FALL SHARES If you ordered Fall Shares, those will be coming the last 2 weeks of the season alongside your normally scheduled CSA Shares. ALL OF YA'LL who made these extra orders will get emails from me in advance to let you know when to look for your extra boxes ;)

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT IN YOUR CSA SHARES THIS WEEK:

Jumbo & Family Shares: Buttercup Squash, Sweet Corn, Red Cabbage, Banana Peppers & Tomatoes!

Single Shares: Buttercup Squash, Sweet Corn, Broccoli, Banana Peppers & Tomatoes!

These are a variety that you haven't seen yet. Ben's absolute favorite, the buttercups! It is very sweet and the flesh is perfect for making into baked goods. Just cut it in half with a big knife and scoop out the seeds. All these winter squashes can be baked the same way, just cook them until they're fork tender (like cooking a baked potato), which is about a half hour on a medium sized squash. If it's too hard to cut, consider popping it in the microwave for a minute or two at a time until it's softened a touch and it's easier to cut through. All of these winter squashes are HARD so you'll need to be careful when cutting them in half. That's part of the reason they last for so long (ahem, winter squash), they come with a protective skin!

Some folks like it plain, or with some brown sugar and butter in the center cavity. I would say that's the most popular way to enjoy buttercups. Consider using the seeds in the center to make yourself a little high-protein snack! Just rinse the seeds until there aren't membranes on them anymore and then I soak them in salt water for a little bit before cooking them. The most important thing is to spread them out so they're even on the pan, you don't want piles of them because they won't roast correctly. Single layer on a sheet pan and then I usually sprinkle salt over the top as well but you could spice it up and make a rosemary salt blend, use dry ranch seasoning, the options are limitless. I have actually frozen these in the past in small packages and taken them out for snacks too, they are still nice and crunchy!

BROCCOLI-

Make sure you're soaking your broccoli to remove any hitchhikers. There shouldn't be a ton because we haven't seen a lot of moths but there are always a handful out there and while we do soak it when it comes in from the field, there is no fool-proof way to eradicate them (because we don't use sprays).

If you're short on time this week and want to freeze your broccoli instead of using it fresh, chop it up into florets and then blanch (boil) it for a couple minutes. Take it out of the water and put it in an ice bath, and then pop it into serving sized portions in bags or containers for the freezer. When I freeze broccoli I am usually doing it in big batches with other veggies too as a medley, so I do broccoli, cauliflower (which we don't have right now), carrots, maybe even some onions in a few of the bags.

BANANA PEPPERS These are super fun! These are so sweet and I am looking forward to pickling some of these this week! We haven't harvested any yet because we were concerned we wouldn't have enough for the CSAs, since the peppers were in the lower spot that was damaged by those big rain falls. That and the stinking deer this year- we can't catch a break!! This week we'll be adding banana peppers into everyone's CSA boxes. The flesh is thinner than a bell pepper but it's significantly sweeter. If you want to plan a side dish with these you could look on the blog and search "pepper" and a few will pop up. We like to use them with salads because they've got a nice crunch, either that or stir frys, on the grill with some assorted veggies, these shouldn't be hard to work into your meals this week ;) You could simply grab some dill dip at the store and add them as a side for your lunch, too!

Kids' first day of school pic in front of the barn per usual!! 7th, 6th & 4th grades this year. William keeps asking to be home schooled, but the answer is still no. lol. They all do good in school and get good grades, so it's not that. He complains it's just so much sitting... & I just have to agree it's kinda ridiculous that they don't have time for any outside time and gym is every other day (the only reason he looks forward to school at this point). It is what it is though, he's our oldest so we're still adjusting to 7th grade schedule and I imagine this is normal for other schools too.

Shout out to all of our educators out there!! You guys are rockstars and put in some long days with all of our kids who are not always well behaved. It means a lot to invest in youngsters, especially nowadays. These kids need us to guide them and I just want to say thank you to all you guys out there who are doing these hard jobs investing time in our youth!!

WRAPPING IT UP: Sorry for the speedy newsletter here!! Just wanted to explain a little and share my morning with you so far ;) Started by cleaning the kitchen at 6am, making Ben some breakfast sandwiches and made breakfast for the whole crew, cut up a bunch of onions to add to my refrigerator pickles because I didn't have time the other night when I made ice cream pails full, lol. I bet I have 4 gallons of refrig pickles made. I made Ben his lunch, labeled the pork chops with prices (because they're by the pound, so each will have a sticker with a price tag on it), helped load tomatoes into the van (Ben brought 24 boxes to the stand today for folks to use in canning!!). Welcomed my Mom, Dad and Mark (Dad's friend) at about 10am and got working on honey harvest. They helped tidy up the pack shed where we'll do all the honey spinning today. They needed a part for the extractor so they ran to the store, so I snuck down into my office to write my blog post, Mom went to the store to pick up a few things for lunch/dinner since we didn't plan in advance. We're all so busy we never even talked about food, lol! When the guys get back I'll go out and help harvest honey or pick tomatoes, not sure yet. I have a crew here today picking some stuff for the stand and then we'll focus all of our time on tomatoes this afternoon. I considered trying to get some canning done this evening since these tomatoes are ready now and I haven't made salsa yet. I did get pickles done, and I made a bunch of SPICY pickles too- those will be fun ;) The girls are helping around the house and with Grandma, and I'm going to take a deep breath and then change the laundry, haha! It's hard to remember the inside chores when there are so many outside chores! I'm sure you guys can relate; this is a fun time of year but man it's at about a million miles an hour!!

Remember what we talked about last week with our time being our most precious asset. It's the only thing in this world we actually have control over! Spend it wisely ;)

Eat Good & Be Well,

~The Farmer's Wife