This Week
Whew! What a week y'all! We made it through the long weekend thanks to the help of our farm family and lots of our friends. It's Labor Day, and Kaden and I walked the farm for the inventory today, and we have some great vegetables and fruit for you this week! We have more salad and the first good cutting of this arugula crop. The salad this week will contain Tokyo Bekana, baby mustard, baby arugula, and both of the shoots. It's hard to call it a mesclun mix, so we will stick with the salad and shoots mix for now.
It's PEAK muscadine week, and this week they taste better than ever. All of them are extremely ripe, and now have the deep, syrupy sweetness that I absolutely love. We will include some muscadine jelly in the shares this week as well. The rain has really helped the pear harvest, and this week we will harvest most of all the ones we can reach. I know the canning pears are a strange ingredient, but they are totally worth a recipe research adventure. You can make an apple sauce style dish, pear butter; they are even so good when sautéed, then glazed with honey. We make a pear jam with just honey that is so dadgum good!
Chef Katy Aker's Farm Share Recipe
Farm Update
BIG NEWS! We landed an opportunity with the largest grocery store we have yet approached, Southern Market in Sterlington! I have known the manager, Mr. Sam, since I can remember. He was the butcher for years at Luther's Grocery in Marion when I was growing up. Southern Market is going to carry our jam, and our vegetables! We will start with some shoots and salad mixes next week, as soon as I put a barcode on our label!
Emi and I finished moving all of our belongings, so we now just have to organize the new house in Antioch. In the chaos that was last week, no one called Claiborne Electric, so we won't have power until Tuesday. No big deal, it's not like I don't work outside! Lots of our neighbors have stopped by to introduce themselves, and apparently our arrival is the talk of the community. We have had neighbors help us unload trailers, brought us food, and let us borrow their lawnmower. Two of them who stopped by yesterday have bought vegetables from the farm. I'm really excited! There's a three-acre pond in our backyard, so we can't wait to get our canoe in the water.
I hope you will forgive the briefness of this week's newsletter. I have been short on time for the past week. Also, I do not have phone service, or internet at our new house. I will only be available through email and phone during the time I am at the farm. As a small business owner and farmer, it's tough to not take all of the worry and responsibility home with me when I leave the farm. Once we move in, I really look forward to being less connected with the outside world, and more intentional with my time off the farm.
Members
Last week, I forgot to message several of you when I dropped off and delivered your shares. I will work hard to do better this week, but I have a lot on my mind, and my world has been kinda chaotic. To avoid any mistakes, or forgotten shares, I really encourage you to set a reminder on your phone calendar for picking up your share. You can access all of your delivery dates for the entire season on your Harvie profile. Thank you all for always being so patient and understanding!
