We are at our last regular share -- week 20! We so appreciate your support this year. COVID-19 has brought unprecedented challenges for all of us, in our work and private lives. We appreciate your choice to support local organic agriculture, and we hope we have gained your trust that we work hard to bring you healthy food each week. Our fields are emptying of much of our year's work, a sign of a year well lived in a garden. We will have enough produce for the bonus week of harvest the week before Thanksgiving. We will send an email out asking for confirmation that you would like that harvest. Shares will be distributed that week the same as the rest of the summer. If you would like to change the pick-up location for that week, you can do so in your Harvie account, or by emailing me.
This week we add leeks to everyone's shares. Hakuri turnip greens and turnips made their first appearance last week and will be in this week's shares again. These are the mildest of all turnips, excellent for salads or roasting/sautéing. The greens are also very mild and tasty raw in salads or as cooked greens. We had a good hard frost this past Thursday, but we had most frost sensitive crops still producing covered with frost protection. The tops of the pepper plants were touching the frost protection, so they got a little frostbit. We will be pulling all peppers this week. Serrano plants will be in your shares if you want them. I forgot to set them atop of your shares last week. If you messaged me last week that you want them, I will add them this week. If you want a plant and did not let me know yet, it is not too late. I will cut off the roots, and you can hang the plant upside down to harvest as you need/want serrano peppers. They are more spicy as green peppers, mellowing when they ripen to red.
Winter squash will be in everyone's shares this week as well. We have spaghetti, acorn (green and white), sugar dumpling, baby blue hubbard, and autumn frost. Some were ripe enough to pick considering the frost that was coming, but not quite ripe enough to eat. For example, if you receive a spaghetti squash, they all have ripened to the point that their skin is hard, but they are not quite yellow in color yet. You will want to place them on your counter until they turn yellow-- the color of butter. Green winter squash is not as easy to tell when it is ripe, but it is a good idea to let it ripen on your counter for a 4-5 days to allow some sugar ripening.
I would like to send out a survey regarding the varieties of vegetables that we grew this year. Your feedback will assist us in determining what we grow next year. If you would like more or less of something, or would like to see a variety of vegetable that you did not see in our shares this year, we would like to know! I will put it together on Survey Monkey, and I will keep it short so that it does not take up too much of your time. I would appreciate your feedback!
Well, thanks again for all of your support and kind words this year. We wish you the best for the rest of 2020, and we would love to have you back as members next year.
Best,
Claudia, Jim, Madeline, Emily, Stephanie and Evan
