With patchy frost in the forecast for tonight, this seemingly endless summer is wrapping up along with the summer farm share season. This is the final box of the summer season. We will enjoy a week off of deliveries for some project work and perhaps a bit of R&R, then resume with the first winter share deliveries on November 3 & 4. We are thrilled that so many of you are continuing with us this winter — we are very nearly at capacity and we will likely close signup sometime next week. If you haven't signed up but would like to, this is the last call!
We are adjusting to day-to-day farming with a smaller crew. One of our crew leaders, Haley, departed last week, first for a trip to Germany with her partner and then some other travels. We wish her well on her next endeavor and thank her for everything she did to help make this season a success!
Our crew of four got much done this week. In addition to regular CSA activities, they planted our second high tunnel to spinach and harvested our sweet potato crop. Sounds like fall to me. We will hopefully be doing one final habanero harvest next week, but are otherwise are very much shifting to our fall chapter - garlic planting, field cleanup, making firewood, infrastructure projects.
Sweet potato harvest had a rocky start. Our "potato digger" had a hard time dealing with our extremely dry soil conditions. It digs out a 5-ft wide section of soil (and its contents) about 10" deep. It's supposed to convey everything in that zone — soil + potatoes — out of the ground, with the soil sifting out through the widely spaced bars of the conveyor and the potatoes ultimately being deposited back on the ground to be picked up. The soil should act as padding between the tubers and the bars on the digger, so scuffing is minimized. But very dry soil doesn't crumble the way moister soil does and it ended up coming up mostly in chunks that simply traveled down the conveyor along with the potatoes, providing no protection.
All this is to say that our harvest trials on the first couple beds resulted in many broken tubers (these were either left in the field or harvested for crew consumption or possible sale as 2nds) and the remainder a bit scuffed up. Our curing process should heal these wounds and result in potatoes that keep adequately, and certainly eating quality of these is unaffected. I mention this because we will be putting sweet potatoes from this category into shares this week. We would rather use these first instead of storing them well into the winter where they may have shorter shelf life than those with more intact skin. Thankfully, we changed course on our harvest process and came up with a system that took a little more labor but resulted in tubers with much less wear and tear. We should have a good amount for winter shares!
A couple of notes given that this is the final share of the season:
- If you aren't continuing on with a winter share, be sure to use up any credit balance you may have. You can look up your balance here - this can be used for extras purchases.
- We are offering carrots and beets in 5-lb bulk bags at discounted rates for those that want to stock up. These will keep for at least a month in the refrigerator.
- Home delivery members who aren't continuing this winter - we will swing by sometime in November to pick up any share boxes you still have. Keep an eye out for an email from us regarding a date for this pickup.
- We will very likely be reaching out in the next month or so with a survey to get your feedback on the season, especially the diversity and quantity of various veggies offered in shares. This will be used in determining our direction next season. We appreciate your participation.
- We likely will not open up signup for 2022 summer shares until December or January. We will be in touch with an update once we have one.
- THANK YOU FOR BEING A PART OF OUR COMMUNITY OF SUPPORTERS! We couldn't do this without you.
Notes on select items in this week's share:
- Butternut squash: After a few weeks of curing and "resting," we can confirm that this butternut squash is tender and tasty. (Butternut is typically chalky and less sweet straight out of the field, improving in eating quality after a few weeks.) Winter squash comes in all sizes, so we have divided it up into three size classes.
- Watermelon radish: These fall-only storage radishes are one of our favorites. Their greenish-white rinds and pink interiors give them their name. While they do not taste like watermelons, they are typically much milder than standard red radishes and come with a hint of sweetness. The outer rind is fibrous, so most folks choose to peel or trim this part off. These are great for snacking raw, slicing for a salad, or grating into a slaw.
- Sweet potatoes: These will be cured by the time we pack shares, which converts starch to sugar (although purists say sweet potatoes continue improving in eating quality until Thanksgiving). See notes above about scuffing from harvest. Sweet potatoes should be kept above 55F, so a cool cupboard is perfect. Shares may have a combination of medium and smaller tubers, or in some cases just one large one.
- Tomatoes: With all our tomato plants now pulled out of the high tunnels, we can confidently say that this is the last of the tomatoes. Available to a lucky few. But Oct 15th - not bad, eh?
- Spinach: From the same planting as last week, this larger-leaved spinach is dark green and delicious. Not quite as tender as the more juvenile leaves, but generally better shelf life and at least as full-flavored.
Best wishes to all and we'll be in touch with winter share members in a couple weeks!
Dana
