15th Week of the Summer CSA: September 7-10

flower garden from above, photo by Adam Ford

flower garden from above, photo by Adam Ford

This Week’s Availability

This week we will have leeks, celery, spaghetti squash, cantalope*, watermelon, canary melon, purple kohlrabi, red beets, Ailsa Craig sweet onions, shallots, carrot bunches, garlic, red cabbage, red and yellow potatoes, sweet peppers, jalapeno peppers, garlic scapes, green curly kale, lacinato kale, pea shoots, arugula, baby bok choi, brussels crowns**, basil, parsley, heirloom tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, grape tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, roma tomatoes, green tomatoes***, tomatillos, and husk cherries!

*If you received a cantalope that was lacking in flavor, let us know. During harvest we discovered that there seemed to be an off-type seed among the cantalope that we seeded and transplanted out this year, and about 10% of the plants are some variety that just don’t have the taste we expect.

**What are brussels crowns? In the beggining of September we remove the tender growing tip of brussels sprout plants to force the energy of the plant into producing nice, large brussels sprouts instead of continued vertical stalk growth. We find these tops to be a delicious, brussels sprout flavored cooking green that we use the way you would use kale or collards. A favorite in our house is shredded and sauteed into mac and cheese, or just sauteed with garlic and olive oil as a side dish. They will probably only be availble for a couple weeks!

*** Green tomatoes are such a short seasonal treat! There are probably lots of fun ideas on the internet for green toamtoes. My favorites are making a green tomato relish, green tomato salsa, and fried green tomatoes. This week’s recipe below is for fried green toamtoes.

Carmen sweet pepper, photo by Adam Ford

Carmen sweet pepper, photo by Adam Ford

Ailsa craig sweet onions, photo by Adam Ford

Ailsa craig sweet onions, photo by Adam Ford

Green curly kale, photo by Adam Ford

Bulk vegetables available for processing

When we have bulk amounts available with veggies, we like to pass along our wholesale prices to CSA members in case you want to do some processing. Now is the time! Below are the current wholesale prices for certain veggies. If you are interested in getting a bulk amount of anything, send us an email. Thanks! (We aren’t sure how much longer we will have the bulk amount of tomatoes available, as a heads up.)

Roma tomatoes: $28 for 10 pounds, $50 for 20 pounds

Heirloom Tomatoes: $28 for 10 pounds, $50 for 20 pounds

Beefsteak Tomatoes: $28 for 10 pounds, $50 for 20 pounds

Green Tomatoes: $20 for 10 pounds, $33 for 20 pounds

Parsley: $20 for 10 bunches, $36 for 20 bunches

Onions: $20 for 10 pounds, $35 for 20 pounds

Green Curly Kale: $14 for 5 bunches, $24 for 10 bunches

Lacinato Kale: $14 for 5 bunches, $24 for 10 bunches

Garlic: $12 per pound

Jalapenos: $6 per pound, $25 for 5 pounds

Want to know what we do to preserve these items?

For the freezer: Tomato basil soup, chimichurri, kale (chopped up, lightly sauteed with olive oil, to use in omelettes, stews, pastas in the winter), parsley pesto, and garlic scape pesto. (We use garlic scapes in place of garlic in all our pestos… much faster to process than peeling garlic!)

For the pantry: Tomato sauces, salsas, fermented hot sauce (which we put in the fridge after it ferments.)

Fill out the delivery form by noon on Tuesdays.

barn through the flowers, photo by Adam Ford

barn through the flowers, photo by Adam Ford

cosmos, photo by Adam Ford

cosmos, photo by Adam Ford

Facing east, Saltash Mountain peeping over the treeline, photo by Adam Ford

Facing east, Saltash Mountain peeping over the treeline, photo by Adam Ford


Farm News

Busy week: Lots of clipping of cured onions, shallots, and garlic; seeding many, many winter greens to transplant into the tunnels; starting the removal of some tunnel beds from summer crops to get the beds ready for winter crops (already?! wild!); weekly harvesting; direct seeding for outdoor fall greens; vaccum seeling many, many pounds of tomatoes for winter CSA items; and general farm minutea. So for this week’s news, enjoy a photo tour of the farm!

Have a great week!

-ESF Team: Kara, Ryan, Molly, Morgan, Grace, Cindy, Taylor, Katie

Katie pulling crates to the Trunchbull for harvest… if you are new to the farm, all our tunnels are named after Roald Dahl book references: This tunnel is our grumpiest tunnel, with eye level bolts on the inside of the hipboards just waiting to ruin a farmer’s day. So we named it after the terrible Trunchbull character in Matilda, photo by Adam Ford

Katie pulling crates to the Trunchbull for harvest… if you are new to the farm, all our tunnels are named after Roald Dahl book references: This tunnel is our grumpiest tunnel, with eye level bolts on the inside of the hipboards just waiting to ruin a farmer’s day. So we named it after the terrible Trunchbull character in Matilda, photo by Adam Ford

A blown away scrap note that probably lived on a stack of tomatoes that was heading out for the Farmacy Project in Rutland. Farmacy is super neat: it provides CSA shares (put together from many, many regional farms) for folks who have a prescription for fresh food from their doctor for a health issue that would be improved by fresh produce, photo by Adam Ford

A blown away scrap note that probably lived on a stack of tomatoes that was heading out for the Farmacy Project in Rutland. Farmacy is super neat: it provides CSA shares (put together from many, many regional farms) for folks who have a prescription for fresh food from their doctor for a health issue that would be improved by fresh produce, photo by Adam Ford

Rows of kale, newly transplanted head lettuce, and fall fennel behind the flower garden, photo by Adam Ford

Rows of kale, newly transplanted head lettuce, and fall fennel behind the flower garden, photo by Adam Ford

Grace seeding winter spinach, photo by Adam Ford

Grace seeding winter spinach, photo by Adam Ford

Cindy, Grace, and Morgan seeding spinach to transplant into the tunnels for winter, photo by Adam Ford

Cindy, Grace, and Morgan seeding spinach to transplant into the tunnels for winter, photo by Adam Ford

Katie separating tomato trays for harvest, photo by Adam Ford

Katie separating tomato trays for harvest, photo by Adam Ford

Ryan moving harvest crates along the side of the tunnel, photo by Adam Ford

Ryan moving harvest crates along the side of the tunnel, photo by Adam Ford

Red napa cabbage just starting to barely head up, photo by Adam Ford

Red napa cabbage just starting to barely head up, photo by Adam Ford

Field of green and red napa cabbage, growing nicely for fall harvest, photo by Adam Ford

Field of green and red napa cabbage, growing nicely for fall harvest, photo by Adam Ford

This tenacious lettuce transplant is growing well enough where it fell from a tray on the gravel tractor path between two of the fields! photo by Adam Ford

This tenacious lettuce transplant is growing well enough where it fell from a tray on the gravel tractor path between two of the fields! photo by Adam Ford

This wonderful picture of life and death: a new tendril finding support on a dead cucmber vine, photo by Adam Ford

This wonderful picture of life and death: a new tendril finding support on a dead cucmber vine, photo by Adam Ford

Tunnel field, photo by Adam Ford

Tunnel field, photo by Adam Ford

Sunflowers, photo by Adam Ford

Sunflowers, photo by Adam Ford

Katie broadforking the beds in the tunnel where we have removed summer crops and are preparing for winter crops. Broadforking loosens the soil about a foot down, photo by Adam Ford

Katie broadforking the beds in the tunnel where we have removed summer crops and are preparing for winter crops. Broadforking loosens the soil about a foot down, photo by Adam Ford

Oranos, an orange sweet pepper, photo by Adam Ford

Oranos, an orange sweet pepper, photo by Adam Ford

Morning glory, climbing to infinity, photo by Adam Ford

Morning glory, climbing to infinity, photo by Adam Ford

A different variety of morning glory, photo by Adam Ford

A different variety of morning glory, photo by Adam Ford

sweet, low acid, tropical flavored, orange slicer, photo by Adam Ford

sweet, low acid, tropical flavored, orange slicer, photo by Adam Ford

Farmer tomatoes, photo by Adam Ford

Farmer tomatoes, photo by Adam Ford

Molly cleaning out the display cooler at the end of every week

Molly cleaning out the display cooler at the end of every week

sunset from the barn, that gorgeous night last week

sunset from the barn, that gorgeous night last week

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16th Week of the Summer CSA: September 14 -17

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14th Week of the Summer CSA: August 31 - September 3