Hello, farm share members!
We are quickly approaching my favorite time of year. Beginning in late August, and lasting until around mid November, is an excellent time to be on the farm. Irrigation duties have become much much easier, as we have fewer crops in the ground, we've cut off water to many things like potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and winter squash that we are hoping to let dry out a bit, and the shorter days mean it doesn't dry out quite as fast. Weeds and crops are growing much slower, so weed pressure is greatly reduced. There are fun projects to do, like big harvests of storage crops such as potatoes and winter squash, that don't have quite the time crunch and intensity of other harvests. There is tons of great food to eat, and none of the financial stress of the Spring. Plus, I just love the weather! The shorter days feel like a relief after the craziness of Summer, and the cool mornings and evenings are really nice. I am looking forward to it...and hoping we'll have a nice Fall.
We are going to try to do a little push to sign up a few more members for the last ten weeks of the farm share (September 10th until November 12th), so if you know of anyone who may be interested, please put them in touch with us! As the tourist season winds down we are anticipating a little less traffic at the stand, the market, and the restaurants, so we'd love to have a few more sign ups...it seems like a good time of year, too, when people are done with Summer vacations and settling back into a routine. We'll have info up at the farm stand.
If you have a pile of blue bags lying around, remember to bring them back! We still have plenty, it seems like for the most part everyone's been doing a great job this year of returning them, just thought I'd send out a reminder.
As a final note, I am super happy to say that Jack and Whitney are both thinking they'll be back working with me next year! We thought Jack would be leaving to pursue a Masters degree (in teaching) but he has decided to stick around and try to find a way to get some credits online. I am going to try to hand off more responsibility to them in the future to reduce my own work load, and one way I hope that can happen is by having Whitney help me with writing the blog and emails sometimes. So you may be seeing some blog posts by her in the coming weeks.
Thanks for supporting our farm! Great share this week:
Carrots- Back in the share this week, carrots pair great with dill, their close cousin. See the (video) recipe below for a soup using your spinach, carrots and dill:
http://www.marthastewart.com/1088344/carrot-and-spinach-soup-recipe
Dill- Our first two planting of dill were quickly and utterly overwhelmed with quack grass, and we ended up giving up and tilling them in....in hindsight though, it seems like it worked out okay, as this is really the best time of year to have dill. Something about the flavor is great in late Summer, and it goes great with carrots, cucumbers, corn, squash....and of course also with seafood! The salmon are running, here's a recipe for salmon and dill:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/salmon-and-dill-chowder-109309
Spinach- Great time of year for a nice spinach salad. We have a lot of spinach planted and should have it in the shares several more times throughout the Fall.
Eggplant- OK, I changed up the plan again last week after writing the blog, so I'm sorry if anyone was disappointed by the lack of eggplant. The melons came on so suddenly and they looked so good...I thought it was a great chance to get melons in the share. I hope everyone enjoyed them, in case you were wondering, that was a "Galia" type melon, an Israeli honeydew. Eggplant in the share this week, I promise! Refer to last week's blog below for recipes.
Corn- Sweet corn is back in the share after a week off. This is our first harvest of "Luscious" which is my favorite mid season corn. Put some corn on the grill!
Tomatoes- It is peak tomato season and the fruit is really great. I am crossing my fingers and praying that the rain last week won't have done too much harm...tomato plants and rain are a bad combo this time of year, as moisture spreads late blight, which can reduce a tomato field to a rotten mess in no time. I may try using a beneficial organic spray this week that is supposed to help the plants combat the disease. Anything to keep the tomatoes coming!!
Cauliflower- Usually I don't plan to have cauliflower this time of year, but I am surprised with how great it seems to be growing. Should have some really nice cauliflower for your share this week. This recipe looks really good, but so did a bunch of other cauliflower recipes I saw on epicurious.com
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/parmesan-roasted-cauliflower-51143020
Italian plums- Another surprise addition to the share, we have a big hedge of Italian plum trees at our house and they are loaded with fruit. I haven't had a plum that was truly dead ripe yet, but they are ripening very quickly and I'm hoping they'll be delicious by the time we pick them for the shares. Not sure how many we will have until we pick them, but we should be able to get at least four or five small plums in all the bags.
Have a great week, and thanks as always!
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