CSA Week Fourteen

News from the field:

Brrrrr. We had two nights of frost this week. I smelled a neighbor’s woodstove the other day. The tide has turned and fall is upon us.

It is getting to be clean up time in the field. We have planted some cover crops that will hold the open soil during the winter, and then add nutrients and organic matter in the spring. We have tomato stakes to pull, onions to dry, and new ground to plow for next year. We may take on some new building projects this fall, and the repairs I have needed to make to the Cub tractor might actually get done now that our time is opening up a little.

We will now start losing some crops in earnest, like cucumbers, summer squash, melons, and heirloom tomatoes. But we gain some things as well. For example, this week we have potatoes and leeks and a yummy recipe for you. Winter squash, carrots, cold hardy greens like spinach, collards, and kale, all should be coming.

In the Basket:

Summer’s goodness: Sweet corn and tomatoes. String beans make one last appearance.

Salad fixins: Mesclun and radishes.

Potatoes and leeks: Recipe is on the back. The first of several fall dishes for your table.

Carrots: Take the Old Shaw Farm taste test! This is our first year trying out some colored carrots. We have orange, yellow, and somewhat purple carrots for your salad or plate. We did a blind taste test on raw carrots, and purple won. Which makes some sense because people ate purple carrots for millennia and yellow carrots for centuries before orange carrots were developed. Anyway, see what you think. Note: the purples seem to lose some purpleness when cooked.

Garlic: by request!!