7th Week of the Summer CSA season: Week of July 19th

Jul 16

Climate Up Close

For most of the rest of this summer, we have a climate scientist staying at the farm and helping out with farm work while he is taking a short break from his climate research. Jake and some other climate scientist colleagues run a cool side project to their essential research of bringing climate information into communities in a clear, accessible, non-apocalyptic way through Climate Up Close. While he is staying with us, he has offered to receive any climate change questions folks may have, and then he’ll answer some in these CSA newsletters. So if you have any particular curiosities, send him an email (jacob.t.seeley@gmail.com), and then see what gets answered in future newsletters!

*Tomatoes are ready! photo by Adam Ford*

CSA Balance Due

If you haven’t already paid, your balance is due. You can pay online through your account, mail a check to Evening Song Farm 48 Nice Road, Cuttingsville VT 05738, or leave a check in the CSA cash box at the barn. It’s very cool to pay in smaller chunks, just let us know what your payment plan is. You can also email or call us to pay with EBT.

If you get an email reminder that CSA payment is due: make that payment, let us know when you will be able to, or let us know if the amount due seems wrong. It adds a lot of extra computer time to try to repeatedly follow up with folks individually, so this is a simple way to lighten our administrative work. (Some of the auto emails have been a little funky, so we are happy to answer those questions if you get a weird one.) Thank you!

*basil before weeding, photo by Adam Ford*

*sweet peppers growing slow and steady, photo by Adam Ford*

This Week’s Availability

This week we will have tomatoes, sugar snap peas, green beans, garlic scapes, purple kohlrabi, basil, parsley, green cabbage, red cabbage, caraflex cabbage, radishes, loose red and yellow beets, baby lettuce, spinach, fresh oregano bunches, mini romaine head lettuce, green curly kale bunches, lacinato kale bunches, zucchini, summer squash, slicing cucumbers, Japanese cucumbers, garlic bulbs, carrots, and the first tomatoes!

We wanted to share our enthusiasm for garlic scapes: they are only available this time of year, and they are so unique. They are great in pestos, dips, sautéed in quiches and omelets, finely chopped in pico de gallo, etc. This week we grilled a couple bunches and it tasted like the most amazing grilled asparagus. If they are new to you, we encourage you to try them out. (And stay tuned for next week’s fake-a-mole recipe, for another fun way to use them!)

And sorry we misestimated green beans last week… We try to take our best guesses on Fridays for what will be ready to harvest for the following Tuesday through Friday, and sometimes we don’t guess right! This week there will definitely be lots of green beans!

Click here to order your veggies for a delivered bag

Ordering closes at noon on Tuesdays for Wednesday bags, and at midnight on Wednesdays for Friday bags.

You do not need to fill out the form if you plan to come to the barn on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays to pick out your items yourself.

CSA pickup and delivery days and times

If you have any trouble using the online to order your veggies this week (or change your pickup location, or skip this week, or anything…) reach out to us. It’s easy to help.

*fall cabbage starts, waiting for transplanting, photo by Adam Ford*

*spring cabbage, harvested, photo by Adam Ford*

Did you know?

We finally set up our bulk ordering availability on the ordering platform, by clicking on “bulk ordering” on the left side of the store screen. If you are ever interested in a bulk amount of something at wholesale prices for any reason, check out that platform. This week is a great time to make garlic scape pesto for your freezer!

*ripening on the vine, photo by Adam Ford*

Farm News from Kara

All the garlic has been scaped. (This means we got all the scapes off the garlic plants. Not only are scapes fun to eat, but this step is important to encourage the garlic plant to focus it’s energy on growing bigger bulbs.) We continue to try to keep up with the tomato trellising. The team did a big push getting fall transplants in the ground. And we tackled a lot of overdue weeding projects. We also had our annual organic inspection last week, and it’s always a delight when that is passed without any issues. (SO MUCH record keeping to slog through with an inspector, and it is actually a marvel to me, with all the balls that are juggled here, that it always works out!)

We noticed some aborted tomato flowers on tomato clusters higher up on some of the early plants. We aren’t completely sure what caused them, but it means those plants will have a little drop in production later, that won’t be noticed by CSA since we have several planting of tomatoes going… just might be less to wholesale for a couple weeks. Several factors can cause the flowers to die: lack of pollination, too much heat, not enough nitrogen, etc. It’s possible the plants just had too many fruit clusters it was supporting since the lower clusters are booming and about to give us some beautiful harvests!

For us, what’s going on at the farm is also colored by what’s going on with each of the farmers here. This week, Molly (who does all the CSA delivered bags and wholesale order packing, as well as managing the coolers) will be off for the week because she is getting married! Congratulations to Molly and her fiancé, Corey, on this next adventure in their lives. Even though Molly’s role is a big set of shoes to fill for the week (she sent us a several-page, detailed list of her day to day responsibilities so we don’t drop any balls!), we have a solid team who will do a great job packing bags and keeping things stocked and organized for the barn pickup. Molly joined our team in February of 2020, and it was fortuitous timing to get a new employee roped into many of the roles I used to manage, but had to pretty much drop overnight when our daycare closed with the pandemic when our kiddos were just 1 1/2 and 3 years old. Thanks for stepping into all those roles, Molly, and we hope you have the most joyful, relaxing week celebrating your marriage.

In less joyful team news, you may notice that K2 is missing from the pics and descriptions below: She will be ok, but we are sad to say that she took a pretty gnarly fall while downhill mountain biking last weekend and will be recuperating for an extended period of time. She broke or fractured a total of 11 bones, but was given the prognosis of a full recovery with time and physical therapy. Everyone is feeling a lot of gratitude and relief that despite breaking her neck and back, there was not a spinal cord injury. Her community has really helped out tremendously already, but if you have any spare healing thoughts, send them her way! She’s an incredibly resilient, positive thinking, down to earth, super hero, and has already been cracking jokes this entire time through her stay at Dartmouth, and discharge back home. We wish her a speedy recovery, and the continued stamina in keeping her spirit up during this healing time.

*K2 with her relentless smiles and optimism, ready to tackle recovery like she tackles the ultra running races she completes, photo from Katie Hollebeek*

*Thank GOD for helmets. K2 right before heading out for the ride before the accident, photo by Katie Hollebeek*

It’s been quite a season so far for many of the farmers here: with a car accident for one teammate earlier this season, a recent bout of pneumonia and Lyme disease for another, my broken (and now fully healed) hand, family losses for others…. But community and humans are awesome, everyone has experienced a lot of support through these challenges, and all these farmers here are wildly resilient. We all feel a lot of gratitude to have this meaningful, outdoor work to do, and seeing all these happy, grateful veggie eating faces pop in and out of the barn choosing weekly veggies is always encouraging. We hope everyone is having a great summer, or finding support for any road bumps or losses in life you may also be experiencing.

Wishing all a beautiful week,

ESF Team: Ryan, Kara, Molly, Taylor, K2, Galen, Katie, Cindy, Miguel, Vanessa, (and Sky and Soraya)

Grilled Garlic Scapes