LAST Week of the Summer CSA Season: Week of October 22nd

Oct 19

*tunnel greens looking great, 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, bok choi, romaine heads, green head lettuce, red head lettuce, green cabbage, Napa cabbage, mesclun mix, pea shoots, and brussels sprouts
Roots: carrots, yellow potatoes, rutabaga, red beets, yellow beets, chioggia beets, watermelon radish, daikon radish, and parsnips
Alliums: onions, garlic, shallots, and leeks
Fruiting Crops: Painted Mountain corn, tomatillos, sweet green Italian Carmen peppers, jalapeno peppers, aji rico hot peppers, spaghetti squash, green tomatoes, delicata squash, and butternut squash
Herbs and Miscellaneous: parsley, fennel, and fresh baby ginger*

*We had a surprise of a bit more baby ginger, but please list a preferred substitute again if you order it, because we don’t know how far it will go.

This week for bulk purchasing available on the ordering platform, we have garlic, onions, green carmen peppers, poblano peppers, green cabbage, 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

*arg, that pesky fall foliage is a cumbersome “weed” when harvesting fall baby greens, photo by Adam Ford*

*lettuce heads are a comparative breeze to harvest this time of year, photo by Adam Ford*

Farm News

Thank you for participating in the summer CSA program! It’s been a great season for this farm, with some fun successes with experimental crops, improved yields with new experimental soil practices, and delicious harvests of summer treats late into the fall with these milder temperatures.

We really appreciate everyone who is part of the CSA community because you are a backbone to this farm’s operation. From the very beginning, the focus of Evening Song Farm has always been the CSA program. About 70% of the food we grow moves through the CSA seasons throughout the year, with the remainder moving through wholesale orders. We love using the CSA model for many reasons:

We grow a wider selection of veggies and try experimenting with unique items because the CSA model gives space for curious folks to try various things. We like trying new things, and it’s easier to do that type of growing with a CSA rather than just a wholesale model.
We appreciate the reliability and commitment of you all. Every week we know you are filling your fridges with fresh veggies from here, and it makes planning and production for a small farm like ours more streamlined.
We like YOU. We miss the days when we were at farmers’ markets to have more interaction and connection with CSA members, but we still get it here and there, in emails, comments on orders forms, at pickup at the barn, in the pick-your-own flower garden…. and every time I get to connect with one of you, I am reminded, “Wow… our CSA members are cool!” Some of you share your garden pictures with us or your delicious meal pictures, and it’s so cool to see where some of these products go and the joy it brings to other homes. Some of you share your reflections on a particular newsletter that interests you. I have learned what new veggies your kids have tried, or the vegetable you successfully snuck into a spouse’s meal. As a farmer, it’s a treat to get to have any personal connections with the eaters of this food. Thanks for being part of this community.

And at least once a year, I like to remind you of the ways you should pat yourself on the back for choosing to source food through a local CSA. By participating in this CSA you are:

Supporting a small business that employs 12 full and part time (awesome) farmers who love getting to do the work of growing food.

Supporting a small farm that is prioritizing proven and experimental soil health practices that are addressing the climate crisis, while collaborating with researchers and non-profits to compile and share knowledge.
Amplifying the charitable food network in this region: Farms have to produce surplus to be able to meet the demands of planned outlets, and we send that surplus to community partners who are getting food to food-insecure Vermonters every week. Your commitment to local agriculture has the bi-product of supporting food access.
Prioritizing healthy, fresh vegetables for yourself and your family. Healthy food is a delicious element of self care and self love.

This week we had the opportunity to send 3 tall pallets of kale and lettuce to the Vermont Food Bank. Literally, every inch of space in our delivery van was packed with boxes of fresh greens for the Vermont Food Bank to distribute throughout the state. We also continued getting fall harvests out of the field, through the barrel washer, into bags, and down into the root cellar. We removed the end wall of the propagation house, and before we replace it, we will move everything out, level the space, and put landscape fabric down. This has been a fantasy for years to deal with some muddy drainage issues in that space. Next week we will continue with both those big projects!

If you just do the summer CSA season with us, THANK YOU, and have a great winter! If you are planning to do the fall CSA season, and haven’t signed up yet, do that now. Thanks!

Have a great week,

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

Weekly Recipe

Skillet Enchiladas with Poblanos and Corn