It's that time again! Remember to swing by your chosen pick up location this week to pick up your vegetable boxes! For those who have been CSA members before, it's also that time again when the produce selections begin to decrease in favor of the cold hardy fall type crops. The good news is that we will still have plenty of flexibility and customization options built into the last couple of weeks, but it will be slightly less. For instance, we'll probably take crops like cherry tomatoes and cucumbers out of our harvest estimate for next week. We may still have some at market, but this week was a close call for our obligations on those crops and they are just not producing enough for us to be SURE that we'll have them for you guys. You'll be starting to see some Spring-time favorites showing back up. Some folks have got broccoli in their boxes this week and we hope to get some in even more next week. The same goes for cabbage. We have an excellent bed of spinach growing that won't be ready for next week, but we're hoping we hit the timing right for the final week of the CSA.
It was a tough week for things trying to grow this week - not long after they survived the frost they were plagued by another plant enemy - lack of sunlight. The smokey weather this past week has been noticeable in the lack of growth in a number of crops. Hopefully it will be clearing out soon and we can see some recovery.
Did you get eggplant in your box this week? Do you still have some sitting around waiting to be used from previous weeks? Check out the Indian recipe below for Baingan Bhartha (a roasted eggplant dip) from a fellow CSA member, Thanks Cassidi! We love sharing tried and true recipes from one CSA member to the others, so don't hesitate to send one our way if you are finding a particularly tasty way to enjoy your produce.
Just a few updates...
- If you're a bi-weekly CSA member, then this is your next to last pick up! We only warn you on this because we don't want to see any tears on your actual last pick up, lol!
- APPLES - we expect to have some fruit available in next week's harvest estimate. We do have some fruit trees growing, but still not yet producing enough to supply any of our members. However, Bonnie's folks do have a number of very productive apple trees - some of you got to try some last year. They are a mix of Golden Delicious and Cortland apples and both are very tasty varieties.
- We will plan to have some items available for the last couple of weeks in case you'd like to purchase more quantity of some of our 'keeper' crops. Things like garlic, onions, potatoes, etc. The garlic that we are selling is excellent for both eating and planting. We'll be starting to think about garlic planting in the next few weeks (typically early October for us).
- There is one Farmers Market at Libby past the last week of the CSA. We're not sure yet if we'll offer more boxes that week (or weeks past that) through our Farm Stand on Harvie, but we may and we'll let the amount of produce that we have available decide that. We will definitely send out a notice to all of our CSA members as well as Farm Stand subscribers if we do boxes past the regular season.
That's all folks! We hope the smoke clears out a bit and we are all able to enjoy some outside time again. We look forward to seeing you at pick up!
Cheers, Bonnie & Rudy
