This week your shares include the same summer favorites, including one of the things we're most excited about right now - Walla Walla sweet onions - Walla Wallas are a fresh onion great eaten raw atop sandwiches or in salads. We still have local organic garlic available as well in 1lb bags so please do add some of that into your shares while you can! We've got bulk basil still in case you are hoping to whip up some pesto (it freezes great by the way for easy meals all winter long!). Our sweet peppers are just starting to colour up and so we will slowly begin offering those. The eggplants are coming in abundance and now's the time to cook those up! We've got our first red cabbage of the season - great for bright colorful salads and slaws! Finally, this week also includes mixed gold and red bagged baby beets - adorable and great for pickling or roasting whole! And we now have a wider diversity of hot peppers coming on and so this week we are offering bulk peppers mixed hot peppers with Czech Black, Serrano and Cayenne varieties. We are also offering tomatillos still and Pickling kits (which include 8 lb Pickling cukes, 2 heads of garlic and one large bunch of dill for $22), salsa verde kits (which include 2 lb tomatillos, 1 head garlic, 2 onions, one bunch of cilantro and 6 serrano peppers for $18) and bulk Mini Roma paste tomatoes in 10lb boxes - great for sauce making!
And now, for something a bit different! You have heard about them in my newsletters through the season, but as the summer crew begins to wrap up and our intern group and summer workers prepare to leave, I wanted to introduce you all to the fantastic women who have been growing your food this summer. And I am proud to note that we are an entirely woman crew, something somewhat unique in the field of agriculture.
So here's our team: 
From left to right: Audrey (intern), Maya (summer worker), Shannon (summer worker), Carly (me, CSA farm coordinator), Hannah (CSA assistant farm coordinator), Lily (intern), Britt (intern) not pictured (Rachael - intern, Kirsten - summer worker, Abigail - summer worker)
It has been a delight to work alongside this team of women and I am so proud of each of them for jumping into this work this summer!
As a woman who has been working in Agriculture for about 5 years now, I have found it to be a space that is both welcoming and exciting for women. But it can also be a challenging space, as we have to reverse subtle expectations of what a farmer looks like and often work even harder to prove our strength and abilities.
In the farming world, there are many expectations around what women are capable of and what is out of our range of skills/ability and is best reserved for men. This season has served as a serious encouragement to me as I have witnessed all that we are capable of when given the space and trust to lean into our strength and abilities. I do want to note, we have been learning from/with and supported in many essential ways by empowering men on staff here at A Rocha and I have no intention to say that we have done this alone, but want to celebrate that the core of the farm labor has been female.
It is unique to have a team of all women like this, and while we have welcomed men, love to work alongside them and look forward to diversifying our team in coming seasons, this season it just so happened that our team was all female and that provided its own unique gift. Our team has expressed feeling safe to learn and ask questions and it has given each of us the chance to step into particular tasks which may not have been expected of us in other contexts.
I have been so proud of each of these women for committing their energy, and hard physical and mental work to building infrastructure for the farm, working long days in high heat and (as of late) smokey conditions, operating tractors, learning to manage irrigations systems, problem-solving, making important observations and taking on a lot of responsibility. Running a farm is no small thing and this team has really stepped up to the challenge with excitement and curiosity! These women have really put their bodies and souls into growing your food and have delighted in the work all the way along! I am beyond grateful for these people and thankful to you all for choosing to support our farm and A Rocha as we train young farmers and feed our community!
And last here are a few shots of our crew from yesterdays harvest:
Abigail and Shannon ready with the bean harvesting buckets
Lily and Rachael cleaning up the Walla Walla onions fresh from the field
