Blog for September 10th Farm Share....

Hey Everyone,

As the field work begins to slow down this time of year, I have more time to think.  Jack and I have been doing a lot of planning and scheming for next year already, which in some ways may mean we're getting ahead of ourselves a bit, but in other ways it's actually necessary:  we are working up a bit of new ground that we've decided we'd like to use for our winter squash next year, and it's great timing right now to begin killing the grass for it to be ready to plant next Spring.  We're also figuring out how much more garlic we'll need next year, because we'll have to plant it in just a little more than a month, so we need to be getting all our "seed" garlic organized and decide where it's going to go.


Here is what is in your share this week:

Spinach-  Some of the crops are loving the cooler, wetter weather we've been having. The spinach is definitely in that camp.  It has been growing like weeds over the last few weeks, and we should be able to put a nice big bunch in your share.  The spinach is great at its current size...small and tender enough to make a nice spinach salad, but large and flavorful enough for braising/cooking if that's what you want to use it for.

Spuds-  More potatoes in this week's share... the potatoes are one of the crops that the wet weather is less than ideal for.  It doesn't actually hurt the spuds themselves.  But right now is when we would be doing our big potato dig, where we dig all the potatoes from the field and put them in storage for the Fall.  This project is a lot easier, and the potatoes store better, if it is dry.  So we will probably be doing a smaller harvest, and waiting until we get a drier window for the big dig.

Celery-  The celery is really continuing to grow well.  Here is the Martha Stewart page of celery recipes, with some tasty looking appetizers, soup, and salads:
http://www.marthastewart.com/274670/celery-recipes/@center/276955/seasonal-produce-recipe-guide#342090

Cherry tomatoes-  Keeping my fingers crossed that the tomatoes can keep going, and happy that the forecast looks a bit warmer and drier later this week!!  More Martha-  I just discovered this website this year and it is so great. 
http://www.marthastewart.com/336506/cherry-tomato-salad
Completely unrelated to Martha Stewart, I just remembered a great German movie from a few years ago about cooking named "Mostly Martha".  Bad title but a really sweet movie. 

Carrots-  They just keep coming!  There is no end in sight to our carrots...we should keep having them all through the Fall.  Our crop planning for the carrots has really been great this year, we've had plenty of carrots all season but never too many that we got way behind.  This recipe looks good!!
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/caramelized-cumin-roasted-carrots-357271

Cucumber- The cukes keep coming, although I expect they can't keep coming for tooo much longer.  I did a much better job this year with the cucumber plantings than with the Summer squash, which all kind of came on simultaneously.  The cukes are still very nice right now, and I have actually been eating them more lately than I had been for the past month or so!  Have to enjoy them while we still have them.

Corn-  The big wind storm did blow down some of our corn stalks, but there are still a lot more that are doing great, and probably enjoying a good drink.  The corn got so tall this season we kind of ran out off options as far as irrigating it, when putting the sprinkler on top of a T post no longer worked.  I'm hoping it should be in the share at least once or twice more after this week.

Garlic-  We did not grow nearly enough garlic this year, and as we have to reserve some to replant in a month or so, we have already decided to keep all that we have left for "seed" garlic.  Fortunately, our very good friends at Deep Harvest farm right down the road from us are in the midst of a garlic glut.  What's more, their garlic actually did better than ours this year, and the heads very large!  So you will get a head of their garlic in your share this week, and hopefully a few more times before the end of the season.

Thanks for supporting our farm,
ETP