What’s in the Box: Garlic, red storage onions, yellow storage onions, red radish, all lettuce salad mix, spaghetti squash, blue coco romano beans, eggplant, green pepper, cayenne pepper, sweet pepper (assorted), and anise hyssop.
What’s going on at the farm: This week brings us into the last quarter of the season. We harvested the rest of our winter squashes this week bringing in butternut and acorn squash for curing. Our blue coco romano beans are going wild now and heavy with beans so plenty of these coming this week. When cooked the purple color will fade out and the inside of these romano or snap beans is a lovely green and you eat the whole pod on these beauties either raw or cooked. Garlic and onions aplenty for preparing your favorite dishes and of course they are a staple of cooking for most everything so we like to include these weekly for everyone. More spaghetti squash coming to you this week and what is perhaps the last of the eggplant and sweet peppers as they will be slowing down big time now with the most welcome dip in temperatures we are having lately. Cool weather will be perfect for our young spinach, lettuce, chard, salad mixes, and other fall roots in the field. Our all lettuce salad mix is back this week for fresh salads and more crisp red radishes to pair with it. Sweet and hot peppers are also included again and we like them for homeade sauce with the spaghetti squash, or as toppings on homeade pizza. Our outdoor tomatoes are finished now and we have work to do tearing them out and removing trellising this week. We removed squash beds from the field last week but we have plenty to do every week now mowing down crop residues and pulling plastic. The greenhouse’s will also be cleaned up of a heavy load of tomato vines soon too as they have been reduced to just a smattering of small fruit here and there. It was a great tomato year but sadly the cycle does end for us in the Midwest this time of year. Frost is only a few short weeks away now and the window is closing on our day length and plant growth rate as the temps dip and daylight slowly shortens and becomes less direct. Fields which were plowed and incorporated last week will be seeded into cover crops of vetch, and white/red clover this week. Sprouting salad mixes, and greens will be weeded by hand tools, and the harvesting , sorting, washing, and packing will continue as we put together these last week of summer boxes and fall into equinox next week on September 22nd. Fall is my favorite time of year, and a time to celebrate our hard work and efforts from the harsh daily grind of non-stop daily farm labor for 6 months straight. We will be having our annual potluck this year just two days after the equinox on the evening of September 24th so hopefully we will see you here at the farm for that as mentioned last week. E-mail details coming out this week as well for that dinner. Thanks and enjoy the harvest! -Kyle
