Greetings from Against the Grain and welcome to the Eighteenth week of the 2021 CSA!
We are offering a four week fall extension to the regular season CSA. The fall extension works just like the regular season with four deliveries on Oct. 20th and 27th and Nov. 3rd and 10th. Sign up here: https://www.harvie.farm/farm/against-the-grain/signup
Just like previous weeks, the customization period begins once this notification lands in your inbox (which should be around noon on Friday) and will end at 11:59pm on Sunday, September 25th. During this customization window, you can make swaps to your box and add extras. Pick up your box at your chosen location on Wednesday, September 27th. Just as a reminder, if you'd like to change pick up locations for the share that is currently open for customization, please email Harvie support to request that change support@harvie.farm. Always feel free to double check with Holly to make sure the change was made. It is so important to the farm that CSA members have flexibility in their pick up location.
If you'd like to donate your box, change your pick up location to the FARM Cafe and email Holly to let her know you'd like to share the love!
This week's newsletter is brought to you by M Mueller, ATG Biodynamic farm worker.
At this time of year there is an opportunity for ATG Farm to make some of our soil amendments. On a typical Biodynamic farm certain preparations are made that will help soil and compost have a vibrant, life enhancing quality. These preparations are, in fact, small batch composts that we can make, for example, from manure or ground quartz powder (soil and light enhancers, respectively) buried in various natural containers until they have the quality of clay. Besides these two, known as horn manure and horn silica because of their containers, there are others made from a variety of common herbs usually hung in the sun and then buried in their specific containers or sheaths until they, too, have turned somewhat clayey. There are eight basic soil, plant and compost enhancers that we either make ourselves or purchase from a Biodynamic supplier such as the Josephine Porter Institute.
These processes come naturally on a farm that is alive with food in the form of fermenting vegetables, fruits and teas. Besides kimchi, kombucha, and kraut there are sourdoughs, and countless ferments to be found all over the farm at any given time. These methods of preservation help stretch out the season for eating a crop long after it has left the fields. Research shows (see the books of Dr. Daphne Miller, for example) that our gut biomes and our soil biomes are related; that is, there are some organisms that are found both in healthy soil and in healthy guts. As the modern diet removes us further from the soil, so do we become further removed from all the life that has no other purpose than to help humans to live. Getting in touch with friendly bacteria such as occur in yogurt, sourdough and ferments is a great way to join our soil in its annual winter renewal!
Especially at this time during the fall we are deep in the process of preserving the light of the sun which summer has given into our keeping. We are making our Biodynamic preparations and applying them and putting the soil to sleep under cover crops. We have been harvesting since the spring, so for our farm this time is not specifically a harvest festival. Rather it is a festival for strengthening us all for the coming winter. In the coldest and darkest months we hope to have ready that stored summer sun to warm us and cheer us and strengthen us. So much the better when it is home brewed!
Much love and happy eating,
Holly, Andy and the ATG Crew
