Wow, Week 17 already. As my favorite farm blog post was titled, "Time Flies When You're Having Farm". It is now officially Autumn (or will be soon) with the Fall equinox on Wednesday. It is amazing how quickly the days get shorter this time of year. While many people are mourning the end of Summer, I spend the crazy weeks of July and August looking forward to this time of year, when things are mellowing out a bit but the weather is often still really nice.
We had quite a bit of rain this weekend, so we will probably be more or less done irrigating for the year! That saves a lot of time and energy. It also really helps the cover crop I wrote about last week, which was beginning to grow but drying out quickly, and would take a ton of work to irrigate. It may spell the eventual end of the tomatoes, but we did put our sheeting back up over the tomato rows before this weekend in the hope that it would prolong their life through the next few weeks.
The Summer crops gradually give way to Fall crops...first winter squash in the share this week(!), a very poorly named vegetable, as they are planted in the Spring, grow through the Summer and are eaten primarily in the Fall. Vincent calls them "hard squash", I think a better name. Still melons, tomatoes, and peppers from our Summer plantings....
Here's what's in this week's share.
Celery- I am very proud of the celery we grow on the farm, even though it doesn't seem to be a customer favorite. It isn't quite as blanched and crunchy as the grocery store stuff, but it actually tastes like something! Great for soups, stews and sauces, as well as snacking...
Spinach- It has been a long time since spinach was in the share....late Summer the spinach just never seems to grow quite as well or last as long, and so we never seem to have enough of it. Happy to have a beautiful bed of it coming on now though.
Delicata squash- If you don't know these squash, you're in for a treat. The skin is thin and edible so they don't need to be peeled, and the flavor is great. I usually cut them in half longwise, scoop out the seeds, and slice them into crescent shapes pieces about a half an inch wide. Then I toss them in oil and salt and bake them on a cookie sheet for about 30 minutes at 375. They're delicious!
Ailsa crag onions- Soon we will be getting into more of our Fall alliums, with storage onions, shallots, and more leeks and shallots on the way. But we have so many of these Ailsa crag sweet yellow onions, and they're still so nice, we couldn't resist putting them in the share one last time!
Gypsy peppers- More of our tasty sweet gypsy peppers, getting more color and flavor now as time goes on. I was making a potato dish for breakfast this morning and wishing I had a few of these in the kitchen! They are so good.
Heirloom tomatoes- The tomatoes continue! I would really like to keep them going for at least two more weeks to make it into October! At some point we may decide to pick them really hard and let the greenish fruit ripen up in the greenhouse if it seems like it won't survive out in the field....
Melon?- We grew a delicious cantaloupe type melon that is just ready for harvest now...I'm hoping we have enough to give everyone a half a melon (at least) in their share...fingers crossed...
Large shares:
Broccoli- Wow, we have some really pretty broccoli right now. It is so good this time of year! We made broccoli the other day in a cheese sauce...not exactly health food, but really satisfying as a side dish!
Scarlet runner shelling beans- These are a special treat, beautiful purple and black speckled beans that cook up nice and plump. Chef Vincent buys them from us and loves to cook them in the Orchard Kitchen...I am going to ask if he's willing to share his recipe. These beans need to be shelled from the pod, a bit of a project, but because they are fresh and not completely dry they don't need to be presoaked...if you boil them in plenty of water for just 30 minutes or so they should be nice and tender. I will have to cook some up myself to see exactly how long it takes.
Purple carrots or topped beets- A nice Fall root vegetable to round out the large shares, depending on what we have enough of....
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