Happy Labor Day weekend!!
This week we will be rearranging some of your delivery sites to account for not delivering on Monday, so please watch for those emails. We will not be delivering on Labor Day- so the Monday sites are distributed throughout the week.
This week we had an awesome full moon at the farm, did you notice it lasted for 3 nights??! It was full from Monday morning through Thursday. It’s named the “Full Corn Moon” because it was traditionally when Native Americans harvested the fall corn & squash crops. We’ve all heard of the Harvest Moon, which is whatever moon occurs closest to the autumn equinox. This year because September’s full moon happened so early in the month, the full moon in October will be the “Harvest Moon”. So the Harvest Moon can actually change from year to year. I am no expert but I love reading about this! All I have to say is WOW. Look at this picture I got in night mode the other night.
The add-on shares like the Fall Share, the Apple Share and the Honey Share options are all available right now. The apple shares come straight from the orchard, it’s about $2 a pound for a half bushel of honey crisp apples. (You won’t find anything fresher than these apples!) The fall shares are meant to supply you into the off season a bit farther than the traditional CSA because the fall share especially focuses on produce that you can keep in a cellar or cool basement. It doesn’t need to be processed or canned, just storing it in a cool dry place will keep it well into the fall and even into the winter in some cases. The honey from Honey Comb Acres is set up in two packages again. It comes straight from the beekeepers. If you purchase the honey shares (on our website, but all $$ goes directly to them!) I add it into your CSA boxes the last week of CSA deliveries. *We will have to cut off sales on September 18th for any of the add-on shares so we have time to plan and harvest for them.
I have been in cahoots with Finnegan’s Brewing in MPLS for a while now.. We donated pumpkins to them 2 years ago for a pumpkin beer they were making and right away they told me they had plans to age the beer in bourbon barrels for TWO YEARS. I’m not very patient- but I was happy to wait for this pumpkin brew ;)
We will be hosting a pumpkin party at Finnegan’s this season! We will have an adult pumpkin carving contest, kids’ craft tables, a food truck on site, and other fun happenings, along with the normal laughs and bad jokes from yours truly!! They are closing their taproom for our private event! We will be posting the official information at the end of next week when we have finalized all of the details. If you bring a canned food item for the food shelf you’ll receive a free beer ticket, win-win! It is tentatively planned for 12-4pm on Sunday October 18th. This is a family event so please feel free to bring everyone along. Even if you’re not a CSA member, please feel free to join us! This is just meant to bring us all together (especially in this time of everyone being so distant). It’s meant to be a family fun event, so please come join us!
*PS We are taking a poll of who would be able to attend on FB. If you could comment there to let us know if you're interested that would be great! If you're not on FB, you could also comment on this post here.
We will be giving away pumpkins for CSA members at the party- more details about this soon :)
Fall colors are starting to come out. We’ve even seen some of the trees start to loose their bright green leaves. All the squash are ripening at a fast rate now, but those don’t over ripen if they’re left on the vine. We will be spending a lot of time today trying to get squash out of the fields into gaylords. (A gaylord is a size of bin, same bins that you see at the grocery store full of watermelons).
This week in the Jumbo & Family Shares you can expect to receive: Watermelons, Cabbage/Cauliflower, Summer Squash/Zucchini, Gypsy Peppers, Carnival Squash, Eggplant and hopefully Tomatoes!
This week in the Single Shares you can expect to receive: Watermelons, Cabbage/Cauliflower, Summer Squash/Zucchini, Gypsy Peppers, Carnival Squash, Eggplant and hopefully Tomatoes!
The watermelons are coming to an end guys. I’m sorry to share but this will be the last week for watermelons. We did have some blight in the patch, which looks like little spots on the outside of the melons. They’re not pretty but they’re very tasty! Some of the spots are more advanced than others. Regardless of the sizes of spots (if your melon has any- not all do), if you cut the melon open it’ll be sweet and ripe!
A couple weeks ago we added either cauliflower or cabbage into your CSAs. That was strategic to have both of those varieties in one week because if we did all cabbage or all cauliflower, we would end up harvesting the super tiny heads too. Since we did it this way, we are only harvesting decent sized heads for you! So this week you’ll receive whatever of those two you didn’t receive a couple weeks ago.
Summer Squash and Zucchini- this could be the last week of this. We’re to this point in the season now where the plants are healthy and happy but the overnight temperatures are so low that they’re not growing or producing very quickly. During the day, the plants use their photosynthesis to gather energy during the day; at night they’re expending that energy into their “fruits” and plant growth. The same thing is happening with the cucumbers, which is why we won’t have those this week either. We are really coming down to the end of these varieties sadly, but if we get some nice warm nights we should have plenty for your shares. (We can guarantee having them this week Ben said).
Gypsy peppers! These are SO pretty. They have all different spectrum of colors. They grow that bright light yellow and when they ripen they turn orange and red. If you’re still working through the bell peppers from the previous week and you won’t know what to do with the gypsy peppers, you could store them for the winter. Just cut the top off, remove the seeds, and chop them into whatever sized pieces you want! Squish the air out of the freezer bag, add a date and pop it in the freezer. When you take them out in the winter, you can use them in any kind of cooked dish- so enchiladas for example, adding them to a tomato sauce for lasagna, mincing them and adding them to sloppy joes, etc. They can’t be used in a fresh dish because the texture wouldn’t be right.
Carnival Squash! It is an acorn variety and it has the most color variations of any of the winter squashes we will send home with you this season. Some people will put them in a bowl on the table with some pine cones and turn it into a centerpiece decoration until they’re ready to cook them! They have a thicker skin, so only the flesh is edible (some squash skins are edible, just not this one). If you have a hard time cutting it in half, just put it in the microwave for a minute and it will soften up slightly. From there, it can be steamed, baked, broiled, grilled, etc. Lots of ways to prep winter squash!
The eggplant is coming to an end. The plants are starting to die because they’re getting older. Also because we have only harvested them one other time this season so they’re not signaling to themselves to continue producing. Remember the whole “body in motion, stays in motion” comparison? It applies here too. If we aren’t harvesting the eggplant often and they’re not triggered to produce more flowers they’ll continue putting all of their energy into the ‘fruits’ that are already on the plant.
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I know that school is starting, the fall colors are showing through, the grass isn’t growing as fast, we’re seeing an increasingly large # of sweaters out and about- but none of that signifies the end of the farm season. We still have over a month this season- and a LOT more to look forward to <3
Have a safe holiday weekend and hopefully a lot of R&R! Take care,
~The Farmer’s Wife
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