16th Week of the Summer CSA Season: Week of September 24th

Sep 20

*barn field from the cupola, photo by Adam Ford*

This Week’s Availability

This week we will have

Greens: baby lettuce, spinach, arugula, green curly kale bunches, lacinato kale bunches, rainbow chard, brussels crowns, bok choi, mini romaine heads
Roots: carrots, new yellow potatoes, new red potatoes
Alliums: onions, garlic, scallions, garlic scapes, shallots, leeks
Fruiting Crops: heirloom tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, tomatillos, sweet Italian Carmen peppers, red bell peppers, green bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, spaghetti squash, husk cherries, green tomatoes, maybe Asian eggplant, and maybe green beans (put a substitute in your order if you order green beans or eggplant, because we aren’t sure if we will have them)
Herbs and Miscellaneous: parsley, rhubarb, celery, cilantro, broccolini

We listed several items available for bulk purchasing at wholesale pricing on the online platform. This week we have garlic, onions, brussels crowns, carmen, red bell peppers, and frozen elderberries 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

*morning glories being glorious, photo by Adam Ford*

*bee feeding at Tithonia, photo by Adam Ford*

*future field weeds waiting to be blown away, photo by Adam Ford*

Community News

You may have read in previous newsletters that we participate in the Vermont Farmers’ Food Center’s Farmacy Program. This program provides fresh, local veggies and fruits to 250 low income families and individuals who have a health diagnosis that would be benefitted by expanding fresh produce in their diet. The program is run entirely through donations and grant funds, and the Vermont Farmers’ Food Center works hard to make this program a reality for the Rutland area. This October 6th, they are hosting a celebration to mark 10 years of the program. If you are interested in attending the celebration or donating to their program, you can do either of that here.

Farm News

Wowee, only 3 of the 21 beds in the high tunnels that were full with summer crops are remaining to be harvested from, and we transitioned the other 18 beds to winter greens. It’s a quick transition, and important to nail the timing, because we need the greens to grow to a certain size before the total daylight hours dwindle too low to provide adequate growth rates. If we try to eek out another week or two of summer harvest and delay the planting of indoor greens, it can be the difference between having greens ready in December or March… so a 3 month harvest difference from a 2-week transplant/seeding date difference this time of year.

We are bringing the winter squash harvest in, and will let it cure for a bit so they are as sweet as they can be when we start distributing them. And we are getting the last of the shallots and garlic clipped, sorted, and stored in the root cellar.

The kids and I enjoy this time of year to watch the various monarch chrysalises form, transform, and emerge. And we like talking about how real transformation is possible by the complete melting down of the previous way of being to let something completely new unfold. Earlier this season, we watched a male monarch emerge on one of the flowers in the parking area garden, and unfortunately it seemed to have a deformed wing that wouldn’t unfurl for quite some time. We learned that a common reason for a deformed wing is a parasite that can live on milkweed, and that unfortunately, there is nothing to be done to help the little dude. So we just visited it every now and then to wish it well on its short time here. But after about a day or so, I noticed that crumpled wing finally started to unfurl! It took awhile, and when it finally did completely unfurl, he hung around that spot for a little bit, and finally flew away. Maybe it didn’t have that parasite after all, and just needed a little extra time to be ready for the big journey. It was a good lesson to talk about how we all move at different paces on different journeys, and each of our ways of being in the world will look different from each other. So many great ways to learn resilience, expansion, and compassion if you just tune into what goes on in flower gardens.

At the end of next week, we will pull the last of the summer tunnel beds out to transplant the last of the winter greens. We still have some great peppers pumping out fruit in the outdoor fields. It’s been a delicious pepper year. Our freezer (and our winter pizza nights) are excited for all the sliced red peppers that are in there.

Have a great week,

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

Weekly Recipe

Fried Green Tomatoes