SITKA
Sad news for you this weekend: our dear old farm dog Sitka has passed away. Thank you for your kindness to him, especially all the children who would give him some loving pats when they come to the farm for CSA shares. He loved your company.
Sitka...You could sit out in the garden for hours, supporting the farm work with your company. In all weathers. You could hold down a chicken without hurting it, til we came to retrieve it. You could run circles around a cow to distract her when we needed someone else to follow the feed bucket. You could bring a wandering cow back home. You could bust through a window screen, jump the gate, tear through the woods and still beat the car down the driveway. You could sit and be fawned over by a circle of high school girls and love it. To the end, you'd do anything to get yourself out to the garden with us. You were very loved, by your family and all the visitors and volunteers at the farm. We will miss you, Sitka.
ADMIN
LAST CSA HARVEST WEEK is October 1-2. But never fear! You will receive email notifications about our Virtual Farm Stand and still be able to order items on a weekly basis as available. Lovely news!
WHAT'S GROWING ON
As the weather turns to fall coolness, we feel the change of the seasons in the air and also in our harvest baskets. It's another transition in eating seasonally. I know I'm ready to make some soup, probably minestrone (recipe link below). Now we feature potatoes and onions and sweet potatoes and butternut squash. Garlic goes with everything. We will be sorting out the very best to plant in October or November for next year's harvest. Eggplant are making a little come-back, so we have a nice new crop. The patty pan squash are an amazing new crop for us this season. Enjoy them sliced thin and grilled or sauteed. I bet they'd be great in a lasagna. Peppers hang on and ripen to red more readily (heh) as they mature. Very excited to continue harvesting kale and lettuce through these transitions this year. We still have some tomatoes although they are slowing down. We grow them in our hoophouse, so it is a bit warmer in there.
TOMATO FACTS
Did you know...tomato skins split easily when they are grown outside, particularly when it rains. Growing them in our hoop allows us to protect them from the rain and control the amount of water they get. This minimizes the split skins. It also extends the season a bit in the spring and fall, since it is warmer in the hoop. Enjoy that now, as we savor the last few weeks of tomatoes.
SOUP TIME! RECIPE
It's getting cool outside! Eat soup.
My favorite minestrone is this Winter Minestrone from the Moosewood's Daily Special cookbook.
But I might try this one for something different.
