Your slip is showing.

Sweet potatoes are tenacious.  Plant an insubstantial cutting called a slip and you will find yourself with 10-foot vines after a few months.  The slip that Steve holds above is relatively robust.  We’ve planted spindly, leafless, wilted slips and they’ve still thrived.  I took the photo in June when our slips arrived in the mail.

We planted in June and harvested this week.  Steve (on tractor) pulls a digger to lift the sweet potatoes out of the ground.  Clint and Alex direct the flow of soil and sweet potatoes and the crew picks up the potatoes by hand.  It is a simple system but adequate for our once-a-year harvest.  We enjoyed the lovely weather this year while reminiscing about last year’s cold, wet harvest under threat of frost.  We learn something new each year.  Last year we learned that waiting for a little extra crop growth is not worth the risk of harvesting under ghastly conditions.

Each slip can produce a cluster of fat roots.

Blue finds an unusually big root.  We find that sweet potatoes are good at any size.  The roots will cure over the next few weeks to sweeten and set their skins.  We will pack them in your CSA boxes once they are fully cured.

Lackluster garlic season.
The garlic crop was poor across the Midwest this year.  The growers we know (including our supplier John Hendrickson) lost large portions of their crop but were puzzled why.  A plausible explanation is that the 2012 crop was infected with disease (aster yellows) but grew well enough to produce a crop.  The diseased garlic seemed fine when re-planted last fall but didn’t survive the winter or dwindled away as it began to grow this year.  That was exactly what happened to our green garlic this spring.

Garlic is in short supply this fall.  We only have two more garlic deliveries (including this week).  Buy yourself a stash of local garlic if you can find it.

Veggie List and Veggie Notes

green cabbage, 1
acorn squash, 1
leeks, 2
carrots, 2 lb
garlic, 1 head
slicing tomatoes, about 2 lb.
broccoli (1 – 2 heads) OR Romanesco broccoli (1 head)
yellow onion, 1
A mix of sweet peppers: Italian frying peppers and a bell pepper

Some sites will get an heirloom tomato OR raspberries.

Next week’s box will contain winter squash, carrots, peppers and more.

Cabbage – We have a bumper crop of cabbage.  Look for our cabbage in the food co-ops all winter.  It’s been a great season for all the brassicas: cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Romanesco.  The greens suffered during the droughty summer but everything else did great.
Acorn squash (round, ridged, dark green) – We have a nice crop of winter squash this year.  Acorn squash are fairly mild and benefit from browning the cut surfaces to bring out their flavor.  We like to roast or pan-fry slices so they caramelize.
Carrots – We finally dug the first carrots.  We scheduled them for the past three boxes but delayed harvest because there was too much other produce for the CSA boxes.  Enjoy!
Italian frying peppers (red or green, elongated) – These are sweet.  Don’t mix them with last week’s hot Anaheim chili.