Early Frost & Wasting Not

We want to express our gratitude and remind our shareholders that they continue to fund a noble, purposeful project. As new farmers growing unconventionally and audaciously, we need all the support we can get. It is only through the Community Supported Agriculture model that we can even consider pursuing small scale farming with all its challenges. It has only been with your participation that we can justify growing our own food traditionally, organically, using regenerative practices. This community of mindful consumers has been more than supportive.

Thank you.

The frost came early this year! We’ve had patchy frosts for over a week now, nearly a month before we were scraping windshields last season. We’ll continue to liquidate the remaining crops for the final two weeks of the season. We try to keep boxes consistent for home delivery and farm pick up harvests, and from share to share, but some items may need to be distributed as available. For example, home delivery shareholders may receive a different variety of head lettuce(s) from farm pick up shareholders, a different herb, etc.

Head Lettuces

We have Salanova and Romaine head lettuce varieties going out this week for fall salads. Admittedly, we struggle with growing head lettuces later than springtime, but we continue to learn a lot, we’ve made progress this season, and we hope to implement better strategies next year for more consistent harvests all season long.

Swiss Chard or Kale or Spinach (as available)

We have rows of cool season greens from where we can harvest this week. The trick is selecting a green that will provide a decent yield for the whole community with what remain in the gardens. Your box this week may contain one or two varieties of these leaves to diversify your salad bed.

Sweet & Mild Peppers

The pepper crops are the resilient summer holdovers. We’ll waste not, continuing to distribute plenty as long as they maintain through the chilly nights and mornings ahead.

Shishito Peppers

The ratio of red to green shishitos has shifted left on the color spectrum. As we’ve mentioned before, red Shishitos are predictably spicy and will be considered our heat of the week. We are clearing the plants this week and ought to have a generous handful of wrinkly peppers for your family.

Nadapenos

These heatless Jalapenos have been interesting for us this season, but we’d love to hear some feedback as to how you’ve appreciated them. It’s been nice to treat a Jalapeno-type pepper as a sweet pepper without the intimidation of a traditional Jalapeno’s heat. We’ve stuffed them, diced them, and sauteed them.

Banana Peppers

This was our first year growing banana peppers and we were blown away with the yield of the rows and the size of the individual fruits! It’s barely an exaggeration to claim that we might-could fill every shareholder’s box with banana peppers only. It may be true. We won’t do that unless you ask, but there’s plenty of bananas available for anyone that can use them.

Herbs

We have a few cool season herb plants continuing to produce and we will distribute sprigs and bunches as available.

Flowers

Week 19 shares will include our final mason jar bouquets of the season. We’ve learned so much about ornamental cultivation this season and have big plans for the future. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed these unique weekly arrangements as it has been a joy to create them. We will have autumn wreaths to share for our final week 20.

Eggs

We’ve really struggled with our flock this season. Whether it was pressure from predators, drought, wet conditions and disease, or other mysterious challenges, we’ve had a difficult time getting the egg production that we’d anticipated. We’re learning hard lessons and we’re grateful for your patience.

Only one more harvest after this week. If you’re considering supporting the farm and the community again for 2023, be on the look out for further email updates. When the season has concluded, we will take time to reflect and plan next year’s program. After we’ve made decisions regarding the scope of next year’s CSA, as we arranged last season, 2023 shares will likely be available to current members from Thanksgiving through the end of the year.

Erin & David