What's in the box?
carrots
sweet peppers
red onions
delicata squash
broccoli
cauliflower
romanesco
lettuce
spinach
dill
green beans! (finally)
Notes on the box.
Everything except for onions and squash should be stored in the fridge.
If you are overloaded on peppers, dice them up and put them in a freezer bag for later use. Add them to soup or stir fry for some color and local food when the snow is on the ground. No need to blanche them and no need to thaw them before cooking. You can also roast them with olive oil and freeze them for a nice pizza topping. We will be putting them in the boxes until frost kills the plants.
We were able to get some romaesco that didn't go all wonky! It's smaller than in years past, but tasty and fun to look at. It's nice steamed and served with cheese sauce or roasted, just as you would broccoli or cauliflower.
Cosmic Wheel Creamery Cheese Shares.
Vega is the aged cheese. It's great on veggie sandwiches or grated or cubed and put onto salads. It's a good melter, too. I sent the feta in block form and not crumbled this week. This way you can crumble or cube it as you wish. It's got a short-ish shelf life when it's not stored in its brine, but it's a manageable portion to get through. Or if you would like, you can make a little brine to store it in at home. Just mix 3 tsp of salt in 2 cups of cool water for your brine. The outside of the feta might get a little soft, but it should still be good.
Recipes.
Cauliflower Roasted Red Pepper Soup
Greenbean Salad with Feta, Dill, and Walnuts
On the Farm.
Harvest Party is this SUNDAY! Starts at 2 PM. Bring a Dish to share. Be ready to have some fun and relax. For directions, type Turnip Rock Farm into google maps. Let us know if you will be able to make it out.
There only two more weeks of the main season left!
If you have an eat like a farmer share then you will keep getting deliveries for four more weeks.
We will offer a few more extension shares once we get past next week. We will let you know when we make them available online. We have a great squash harvest, tons on big butternut squash, and acorn. Lots of onions and more potatoes and carrots. With this mild fall weather we will be harvesting greens and other fall goodies well into October. We may start picking brussel sprouts next week!
As I write this we are getting another huge dose of rain. This wet weather makes me a little nervous. We are starting to see some low spots in our fields hold too much water and kill off a few crops. This may only amount to 10% loss or so, and you may never be the wiser if I didn’t tell you. But it is just that type of thing we have no control over and try to plan ahead to curb risk and make sure we all get something to eat. But it still weighs heavy on our minds. In the big picture we have been really really lucky out here in Western WI, north of 94. Seems like every directions around us has had more rain and more severe weather. It won't always be that way. We've had really bad weather years out here. But this year we have mostly been spared (save for the few crops that were lost) But we’ve had a pretty nice year. It’s because we’ve had enough rain and enough heat (not too much), good people on the farm, and enough years now to have built up fertility in the soil and learn what our soil can do.
We will be sending out a survey in the next couple weeks. So keep an eye out for that, and be sure to give us some feed back. We listen to what you say, and bench it against what we can do. We have had members who have stuck with us through some really tough times, moving the farm, changing drop sites and share options. Community Supported Agriculture is not possible without YOU! You are the community of eaters that make our farm exist! Looking ahead...
Areas we wish to improve upon for the coming years
1 Carbon neutrality, producing our own energy, conserving more energy, solar panels?
2Reusable boxes/totes for CSA. eliminate cardboard boxes
3 More immediate feed back from members. We want to know what you liked and didn’t like, weekly! Whats the best way?
4 Increase member connection to each other and farmers. More face time, maybe over pizzas? On the farm?
I know we can accomplish these things together. Just over the past 8 years we have made huge strides in accomplishing our goal of a sustainable farm balanced with animals and annual crops. The next 10 can be even better.
Coming up for the last two weeks...
Brussels Sprouts
Spinach
Pie pumpkins
Beans?
Arugula
Radishes
Cilantro
Carrots
Onions
Turnips?
Sweet potatoes?
Cauliflower Broccoli
Romanesco
Peppers
