New this Week: Pie pumpkins, lemongrass, and the broccoli is starting! A few Acorn Squash from Clarion River Organics. Tait Farm Foods Spiced Apple Shrub, Spiced Vanilla Pear Shrub, and Fruit Butters are new in the Extras!
A few veggie notes this week as we make our way through the fall produce.
The change in temperature has slowed the ripening of the peppers tremendously so we will continue to harvest ripe (red) peppers if we can, or at least peppers with a little red blush. Just so you know...if you keep peppers with red blush on your kitchen counter for a few days, more often than not, they will ripen to full red. If you put the same peppers in the refrigerator, they will most likely stay green. Solid green peppers may or may not turn...well, ever. It really depends on how close each individual pepper is to the ripe red stage. This is our semi-famous man on the moon pepper, showing off red blush...
We will also start to distribute pie pumpkins this week! Even though these pumpkins go by the name "pie" pumpkin, that just means that their flesh is sweeter and less stringy than their cousin, the jack-o-lantern pumpkin. You can make many foods with pumpkin, but the simplest is just roasting them like their other cousins, the winter squashes. And, if you just make your CVO pie pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns, we really don't mind! This is Annie harvesting your pumpkins. ;-)
And finally, the broccoli is just starting so there will be somewhat limited availability each week. We appreciate your patience...we know this is a favorite item! Variable harvest over a longer period is pretty typical of fall broccoli which doesn't always finish at the same time like spring broccoli. We actually think next week will be the larger harvest, but there are a few out there for this coming week!
This Past Week on Our Farm...
We mainly harvested this past week. It is time to get all of the remaining warm season crops out of the fields before we have a frost, which includes the rest of the peppers, eggplants, many herbs, and cut flowers. We have already moved on from the summer squashes and cukes, which finished up a few weeks back. On average, the first fall frost occurs for us around October 15th, but this year, it looks like we are going to get some extra time.
This week, we also announced that we will be extending our farm share season for 2 bonus weeks. Instead of finishing up on October 26th, we will wrap up November 9th instead. Please check your email for more details, and we'll be sending out another reminder this week.
Thanks again for being a farm share member this season, and enjoy fall!
Jodi, Allie, Katie, Emily, and Annie
The CVO Growing Team
