What’s in the Box:
Garlic, storage onions, sweet peppers, poblano pepper, jalapeño pepper, habanero pepper, pea shoots, sunflower shoots, curly kale.
What’s going on at the farm:
This week marks the final week of deliveries for bi-weekly members who will receive their tenth share of the season this week. Full season members still have one week remaining next week for delivery number 20 of 20. It has been a long and bountiful season and I am proud to say I think we did the best job we possibly could. I hope to see you all back next year to all you bi-weekly members! Regular full season members you have one more beautiful share coming!
Garlic. We are loading everybody up with garlic this week because it is the last delivery for some members and it goes good with everything. Who can really have enough garlic? Garlic is good for your cholesterol and also helpful as an an medicinal to keep you healthy in the winter. It even combats dementia and helps to lower blood pressure. What an amazing bulb! These dry bulbs will store until spring if it takes that long to use them at room temperature. Do not refrigerate your garlic and then take it out for long as it will sprout. Keep it dry and room temp and out of direct sunlight. Here is a link to the many health benefits of garlic. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/11-proven-health-benefits-of-garlic#section1
Storage Onions Our red storage onions are back but we are down to our last case of yellow so we will have reds for the rest of the season. These will store up to 6 months the same as the garlic out of direct sunlight and at room temperature.
Pea Shoots and sunflower shoots These have been a great crop for us this year and the cooler weather is keeping them sweet and shorter this week. People really have been enjoying them everywhere we take them to market and hopefully you all have too. They have quickly become my favorite for salads.
Sweet Peppers Are one of my favorite crops to grow and they have been abundant lately mostly because of that super hot week we had last week. We have a lot of these left coming in because they started late this year so expect a lot of these in your shares! You can always roast some and peel the skin off and freeze them for winter use too.
Pablano is one of our hot peppers this week and they are mild and so good stuffed with rice, cheese, and beef. I like to make the mix and then roast them at 450 for 30 minutes flipping them halfway through. I do not go through the trouble of pre-roasting and removing the skins under cold water as is traditionally done because I don’t feel its necessary. I just eat the skins and save the time myself.
habanero One of our hot peppers this week is habanero and these are pretty hot so be careful with them when you cut them up. The oils can get on things so rinse them away off your knife, cutting board, etc…. The flavor is very fruity and compliments the heat well. They make a great hot sauce diluted with some vinegar, or combined with peaches or tomatoes.
Jalapeno Pepper I like making poppers on the grill with these. You can put cream cheese in them after splitting them in half and pulling out the seeds (always wear gloves for this) sometimes i cook them wrapped in bacon.
Curly Kale This vitamin packed green is good for salads if you massage it with a little oil.
Basil We will also be chopping down the basil for one last time this season. I recommend using it right away for little pesto which you could use fresh or freeze.
This is our last week for Bi-Weekly members so thank you to everyone who joined us for a 1/2 season (Bi-weekly share) this year! Hopefully you found your experience to be a tasty one and found value in your share of organic produce with us and enjoyed the fruits of our labor. I hope we will see you returning when sign ups open this winter for another season of fresh veggies in a new decade and the year 2020! Crazy how time flies. While we are talking about wrapping up the season I will remind you one more time that full season basic and standard members still have one week remaining! For Tuesday folks the last delivery is Oct. 1st and for Thursday folks it is Oct. 3rd.
We will be shelling garlic for planting over the next week here and prepping our fields for planting it. It was a very good garlic year and we have a lot of some very large seed garlic which should make for another good year for it next season. Garlic also adapts to its soil slowly over the years and our stock has definitely progressed into noticeable larger bulbs every year. To prep for planting we break all the bulbs up into individual cloves which will be hand planted one by one with the water wheel planter in a few weeks.
We still have two more solid months of work in general here before I can cozy in a bit and let the achy bones rest for a month or two while planning for and dreaming of another season to come.
I am looking forward to some vacation time myself or at least a few days off every week since I had less then 5 off all year and some more time with my children at their soccer games and other activities. I will be attending some winter markets as well if you would like to support us and find our produce through the winter months. Some possible Dane County Farmers Market holiday indoors are on the agenda for winter from mid November until Christmas and there will be some excellent garlic to be had among other things. We are planning to be downtown regularly on the square through November 16th and at our Janesville, E. Side Market and Fitchburg locations on and off through October 31st. Thanks again to all our bi-weekly members this year for your participation and support! We will be in touch with reminders regarding sign-up opening for next season around the turn of the new year. Otherwise I have all ready gotten a couple sign ups for next season so feel free to use the sign up form to sign up anytime for next year too. I’ve all ready cleared the old sign ups and I expect pricing to remain the same as I raised it this last season. As always I offer a 20 dollar discount to any returning members who sign up before February 15th on any share. Thank you all for being a part of the CSA and until next week then for the rest of our members. Enjoy the produce folks!
