11th Week of the Summer CSA Season: Week of August 20th

Aug 16

*scarlet runner beans.... the humming birds love them, photo by Adam Ford*

This Week’s Availability

This week we will have

Greens: baby lettuce, spinach, pea shoots, green cabbage, green curly kale bunches, lacinato kale bunches, rainbow chard
Roots: red beets, yellow beets, carrots, new red potatoes, yellow potatoes
Alliums: onions, garlic, scallions, garlic scapes, shallots
Fruiting Crops: slicing cucumbers, Japanese cucumbers, heirloom tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, roma tomatoes, tomatillos, shishito peppers*, jalapeno peppers, Asian eggplant, Italian eggplant, spaghetti squash,
Herbs and Miscellaneous: basil, parsley, rhubarb, celery

*Shishito peppers are a super fun and delicious pepper, but you have to enjoy surprises. They are sometimes sweet and mild and they are sometimes sweet and spicy. They are known to be of medium heat and delightful sweetness, but in our experience, they either have substantial heat, or they don’t. I recommend them to people who enjoy some spiciness in their life, but are also not disappointed if they are mild. They are commonly eaten blistered, either pan fried or grilled, by tossing them whole in olive oil, and then sprinkled with some salt and fresh lemon juice after they are removed from the heat. Then you have a delicious platter of peppers, some mild, some spicy.

We listed several items available for bulk purchasing at wholesale pricing on the “bulk” section of the online platform. (If you look to the left of the screen when you are on the store page, it should have an option to click on bulk items.) This week we have heirloom tomatoes, garlic scapes, onions, cabbage, basil, and green beans, available in bulk amounts if you do any preserving for winter. If you pick up at the barn and want to order any of those items in bulk, just send us an email.

Click here to order your veggies for a delivered bag to Ludlow or Rutland

*fall zucchini flower, photo by Adam Ford*

Farm News

This week we weeded a field of fall carrots that got a little away from us: now they look amazing! The team also transplanted a bunch of fall crops, and began seeding trays of winter tunnel greens that we will transplant into the tunnels after we remove the tomatoes later this season. We did the first half of the elderberry harvest, leaving some umbels that need a little more time to ripen. Fingers crossed we will get to harvest them before the birds do. The elderberry zone is a wonderful habitat for them, and we are definitely into sharing with our avian pals, but we are also happy to harvest as many of them as we can. They seem to know the moment they are perfectly ripe, and they are definitely checking on them more frequently than we are since they seem to be living in them these days! The onions grew really beautifully this year, and we knocked the greens down this week so they can start drying down and curing in the field before we harvest them.

The cool nights have been lovely, but are always a sign that the next season is right around the corner. Fruiting crops slow down their output as the evenings cool off, and greens regrow slower as the light decreases, but with the volume of everything we are harvesting each week, I still wouldn’t know that it’s mid-August if I wasn’t paying attention to the cool nights.

This weekend I am getting to travel to our friends’ farm way over in Hector, NY (Finger Lakes Region) for an anniversary gathering they are hosting. Liz and Matthew of Muddy Fingers Farm have been an incredibly valuable resource in our farming journey, and I haven’t gotten to see their summer gardens in action in 8 years, so it will be a real delight to get to walk around our early mentor’s gardens during the height of the season. Some of the more interesting vegetables we have tried growing over the years have been from their inspiration. They are incredibly creative and curious farmers. This year we all have the Sart Roloise tomato to thank them for!

Next week we hope to bring in the onion harvest as well as the last round of elderberries. If you like to make a batch of elderberry syrup for your medicine cabinet for the winter, send us an email. We freeze elderberries in bulk amounts for folks to cook down into syrup. It really is an essential part of our family’s immune system support during cold and flu season.

Have a great week!

-ESF Team: Ryan, Kara, Galen, Taylor, K2, Miguel, Katie, Vanessa, Evan, Bryan, Leah, and Cindy (and Sky and Soraya)

Weekly Recipe

Fresh Tomato Sauce with Grilled Fish