Week 18 Newsletter

In your box:

–Beets or Rutabagas

–Brussels sprouts

–Cabbage

–Green onions

–Kale

— Salad Mix

–Turnips

–Winter squash

Welcome to your last delivery of the season! Basking in the sun and 85 degrees on Sunday, I couldn’t remember why the growing season is over. But then the temperature dropped 40 degrees over the next day, sleet pelted me as I brought in the last harvest, and a strong wind smelling of the Northwest Territory slammed in and reminded me that it’s about time to hibernate. Enjoy your last bites of greens and fresh veggies. As we pass through October, I come to realize how long it will be before we are blessed with nutritious crops picked right from the garden again.

The winter squash this week are all Acorns, either the customary dark blue variety or one called “Fordhook” that resembles a tan Nerf football. Either way, these are really versatile squash that are tasty in pies or baked on pizza. These make a great squash smoothie: just mix one cup of cooked, pureed squash, 2/3 c. of milk, 1 tsp dried ginger, 1 tsp dried cinnamon, and a little ice. Blend until smooth and enjoy! Supposedly if you drink enough of these it will turn your skin orange, but I’ve not found that to be the case. It could help to explain John Boehner, however. True fact: if you start Googling his name you will be prompted to search for “john boehner orange.” Evidently this is a common enough query that Google just guesses that you’re wondering why this man’s skin is orange.

Once I saw that the onion crop was a flop for the year, I added a late planting of green onions to the garden. These didn’t have enough time to mature into a large green onion, but obviously this is their last chance to delight your palate. As you might remember from the spring, the whole onion is edible and you should use as much of it as you like.

For the next few weeks I will be spreading compost, preparing garden beds for next year, finishing projects I started in March and set aside by April, planting garlic, and covering any exposed soil with straw for protection from erosion over the winter. Even as I’m not harvesting or working directly with plants, I stay quite busy in preparation for 2016. By Thanksgiving my workload finally slows down, and usually everything is covered in ice. I’ll have the winter “off,” by which I mean I’ll be watching our boys, buying seeds and fruit trees, planning next year’s garden, attending conferences, and trying to fit in a fine winter’s nap here and there. I start planting in the greenhouse on March 1^st, and then things begin anew.

By the way, we can still use any boxes you might have that are in decent shape. I will stop by all of our delivery sites next week to pick up any returned boxes, so please get them back to your pickup location as soon as possible. To save yourself a trip, you can bring some bags or a box to this last pickup so that you don’t need to take your box home. Thanks!

We hope you’ve enjoyed the 2015 growing season. It’s been one of our better growing years overall and I think I learned a lot that will help me in the future. I will be following up in two weeks with a brief survey, some statistics on the growing season, and my thoughts on 2015 as we look toward the future. Please take some time to read this over and provide feedback. We hope you will join us again next year, and your feedback is a great help as we consider delivery sites and plan out our gardens and harvests for the future.

I will also have an update on our expanding perennial orchards, full of fruiting trees and shrubs and some nut-bearing plants that will eventually be a part of our CSA.

Thanks again for your support this year. Every growing season confirms for me that I’ve truly found my passion in the work that I do, and it is an incredible blessing to be able to live that out. Thank you for being part of our local food economy, our vibrant countryside, and our community. Have a great winter!

-Red, Nina, Nathan, and Adam