Is it over yet? No, not yet …

There are three more deliveries after this week.
October 24/25 (this week) – purple EOW
October 31/Nov. 1 – green EOW
November 7/8 – Purple EOW members get their final box.
November 14/15 – Weekly and green EOW members get their final box.

Farm News: Freeze
It froze hard every night this week, 25 – 26 F.  This is not unusual for late October but we were working in shorts just last week.  We still have many fall and winter storage crops to harvest.  Beets, carrots, leeks, Brussels sprouts, and greens can handle a string of cold nights.  Cabbage is more sensitive so we put 40,000 lb into storage this week, enough to last through St. Patrick’s Day in March.  Next up on our harvest list: beets, celeriac, and winter radishes.  These storage crops are very important to our business.  Almost 20% of our yearly sales happen after mid-November, mostly as sales to our store customers.


Above, Bri rescues beet seedlings in mid-August.  The weeds were enormous.  We considered abandoning the planting but did not want to sacrifice the beets.

Now two months have passed and we just harvested those beets for your CSA box this week.  The extra effort paid off.  Above, Bri holds a cluster of golden beets.

One more u-pick photo and comment

Member Robin Schmoldt sent the photo above from our Oct 6 u-pick, and wrote to tell us about her family’s experience that day.

“This year, (our daughter) Emma was ready to go to the farm.  She had an absolute blast.  For us, it was wonderful to have a chance to start teaching her where good food comes from.  For her, it was amazing to see a real farm and not just illustrations in her books.  Thank you so, so much for providing this opportunity.  Emma’s only two, so she’s still new to this forming-lasting-memories thing, but a week after her visit she would tell everyone she saw about how she “picked broccoli and ‘tee-matos’ and carrots and pumpkins”, so your farm obviously made quite the impression.  Thank you again!”

That’s exactly how we hope children will experience our farm events.  Sometimes Steve and I get so wrapped up in the planning details (tornado protocol! no dogs!) that we neglect to emphasize the joy of visiting the farm where your food is grown.  It can be a great experience at any age.  Thank you to all who visited and sent their photos and impressions.  We’ve enjoyed your comments so much.  Beth

Veggie List and Veggie Notes (week#23, purple EOW)
The broccoli is amazingly productive this year.  We planted the usual amount but somehow ended up with much more broccoli than usual.

Red cabbage
Golden OR red beets, 2 lb
Carrots, 2 lb
Leeks, about 1.5 lb
Onion, 1
Broccoli OR Romanesco broccoli, 1 or 2 heads
Bell peppers, 3 or 4
Poblano peppers, 3 or 4
Winter squash, 1 or 2, see note below

Next week’s box will probably contain carrots, parsnips, peppers, garlic and more.

Poblano peppers (triangular, shiny, red or dark green) – These hot peppers have great flavor, especially when roasted.
Bell peppers – We harvested these peppers before the frost.  They are mostly red peppers, with a few green, yellow and orange mixed in.  We have some Italian frying peppers stashed away for next week’s box.  That will be the end of the peppers.
Winter squash – We have many different types of squash to distribute this week.  You will receive one or two squash from this list.  All types need to be eaten soon.  They are all ‘short-season’ types that will not store for long.  Store at room temperature with good air circulation, eg on your kitchen counter where you can keep an eye on them.

• delicata (long, slender, striped green and yellow) OR
• Sweet Dumpling (round, striped yellow/green, recessed stem) OR
• Sugar Dumpling (round, striped yellow/green, smooth shoulder at the stem) OR
• acorn squash (round, dark green) OR
• pie pumpkin (looks like a small, solid pumpkin)