Hi Farm-ily!
It's Week 13, and that means we've hit the official midpoint of our farm share schedule. Farmer Collin's CSA program in Michigan only had an 18 week growing season, so we're definitely lucky to be farming here in the mid-Atlantic where the warmer weather allows us the time to grow, harvest, and store so many delicious things. Speaking of schedules, now is a good time for an important reminder: there are no CSA distributions the week of August 31st. This includes veggies as well as milk, flowers, and other items, and covers all our Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday members. We will distribute shares as usual on August 29th and then resume on September 8th.
This short break allows the farm to focus for a week on fall plantings rather than harvesting, and gives you a chance to turn any lingering produce in your fridge into delicious meals. It's also a great time to think about rescheduling any shares you may have skipped earlier this year when your calendar was packed. Either stock up before the break week to tide your family over, or get a double box when farm shares return to fill those empty crisper drawers! Here are some helpful directions for rescheduling held shares; you can also always email us at farm@willowsfordfarm.com if you need a hand.
This is our first year with a mid-season harvest break; it's also our first year with over 400 Farm-ily members! All that awesome membership growth has given us plenty of incentive to find ways to live the adage "work smarter, not harder". Our crew deserves a hearty round of applause for their tremendous efforts, but we also have some pretty impressive mechanical assistants out on the fields and inside the pack shed. You might remember from last year our praise for the water reel, or our Instagram post about the washing machine Collin retro-fitted into a giant salad spinner. Our 2020 MVP, however, is our new harvest conveyor.
Imagine a 28 ft conveyor belt, suspended over 4 rows of veggies and anchored on one side to a flat bed trailer. The trailer is towed behind a tractor in low gear, creeping along as 4 crew members each harvest in different rows. Every ripe tomato is placed on the conveyor, where it makes its way to Rory on the trailer to be sorted. The more traditional method of dragging a bin along the ground as you make your way down the row of tomato plants makes for hot, slow, heavy work in an August heat wave.
Other tractors have implements called "finger weeders" and "sweeps" that allow us to drive (carefully) over rows of baby plants and remove weeds growing between them without having to do so by hand. Our carrot volunteers saw the big blue New Holland tractor pulling an undercuttter that does exactly that: slices beneath root crops and loosens the surrounding soil for an easy harvest. When we plant winter brassicas over the break week, we'll be skimming over the ground in the seats of the transplanter, making quick work of row after row of seedlings.
If you see us in the traffic circles of Everfield Drive, driving a slow-moving tractor from the Grange Farm to the Grant, it's because these massive machines and their odd-looking array of attachments exponentially increase the labor output of our small crew. They make it possible for us to work discontiguous acreage and turn all that soil into thousands of pounds of produce. Farms make fertile ground not only for food, but for innovation.
Meal Plan Week #13
- Pepper season is in full swing! That means greens, sweets, banana peppers, snacking peppers, shishitos, and hot peppers. There are as many ways to stuff a pepper as there are peppers themselves: try all 10 of these ideas. For an even easier take, make it an Instant Pot night with Stuffed Pepper Soup.
- Pepper Jelly is a delicious combination of spicy and sweet. This is an easy introduction to canning that will let you brighten your winter with summer flavors.
- Romesco is an Spanish sauce made with almonds and red pepper that can be used with meats, pasta, and this amazing Loaded Eggplant or Summer Zucchini Salad.
- You simply must try Shishitos, if you haven't already. These are flavorful and tender and crew favorite. Blister them in a cast iron pan to make Shishito Peppers with Sausage and Creamy Sriracha.
- For minimal fuss and maximum flavor, Balsamic Roasted Peppers go with anything you can grill.
Eat Well and Be Well,
Ashley, Collin, John, Lex, Alexandra, Rory, Gabe, James, and all the hens, hogs, and dogs
