Week 22 and the Season is Through

The end of the season is always bittersweet. We love growing food and working with the Earth and we’re also ready for some rest when the nights get longer and the days are colder, or in the case of today’s weather colder and wetter. We also miss the routine and seeing familiar faces every week as we also look forward to spending more time with our families. Before we can rest we still have a lot of Garlic to plant for next season, and a lot of beds to put to sleep to be ready to plant next year as well. The season doesn’t end when the veggies do.

As this is the last week we thought it was time to make an announcement about changes for next year. Farmer Rashel is taking a leave from farming. As some of you know a small child came in to our care just before the growing season started. As a family we’ve all made sacrifices and worked very hard to keep the farm afloat while also raising a baby, we did what needed to be done. Some days and weeks it felt like all we were doing was treading water but we managed to keep the plants alive and delivered every week. It almost feels like a miracle. In no small part due to farmer Andrea, who we are happy to announce, has decided to continue running a CSA from the Tremblay Family Farm in 2017! Please keep an eye out on this blog and/or on Facebook for details about Andrea’s CSA plans for next season. Farmer Rashel will continue to grow food for and with their family, and continue to experiment with sustainable farming techniques and sharing that joy on this blog and on Facebook.

Now on to the final Vegetable list of the season:

We’ve had a bumper crop of Peppers this season and we’re offering Green Peppers for only $4 a pound and as a 2 for 1 deal – 2 lbs of organically-grown Peppers for only $4!

We still have a lot of Scallions ready to go so we’re offering those as a 2 for 1 deal as well!

If the frost holds off we’ll have Hot Peppers, Cherry Tomatoes,  and Heirloom Tomatoes.

There will also be Green Tomatoes (to use for fried green tomatoes or to let sit and ripen, other recipe ideas on Veggies!), Sunchokes, Salad, Kale, Chard, Broccoli, Garlic (for planting or for eating), Celery, a variety of fresh and dried Herbs, Shepard’s Purse tincture, and bee pollen.

A big THANK YOU to all of our loyal and appreciative members – you keep us going when things get difficult and we couldn’t make this happen without YOU!

Only these 4 Pears grew on 16yo Lennon’s baby Tree this year, each 1 the same relative size as each of the 4 farm children ❤

 

 

 

 

 

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Important Information – Please Read

Week #19 begins with a few updates.

For farm members: Saturday markets will start at 9 am (not 8 am) starting tomorrow, October 1st. Saturday October 8th will be the last market of the season and The Cheese Bar will be present – they helped us open the season and they’ll be there to close the season. Facebook event details. After that we’ll be emailing out a weekly list of the veggies we’ll have available and will be packing up individual orders that can be picked up at the farm. Check your emails for more details and please talk to us about these changes when you see us at the farm in the next 2 weeks.

For ALL members: Before the season began we had hoped to run for 24 weeks – until November – but that is no longer realistic. The CSA will end on Saturday October 22nd for farm members and Wednesday October 26th for ShopEco/Windsor members. If you have a basic, pre-packaged bag, we will be emailing you if your bag is to end sooner than the above dates. Please talk to us at the next few markets if you have any concerns or questions. We are letting folks know in advance because if you’re on the credit system you’ll want to make sure you use up your credits before the last week. There is a small chance we’ll be able to go longer but that will be a bonus rather than part of the core CSA program. The CSA has always been 20 weeks long, this year we were hoping for 24, and we could have started even earlier (we started 2 weeks earlier than ever), but these are all things we learn from each year as farming is always a work in progress.

October Vegetable Share from 2015

We have ordered bulk potatoes, carrots, and beets that will be available on Wednesday October 5th and Saturday October 8th – in time for Thanksgiving! There are other options for using up credits as well – dried herbs and herbal teas, sun-dried tomatoes, tinctures, pickled asparagus, honey, and *fingers crossed* seeds to get you started on next year’s garden, dried beans (eg, kidney and black beans, for cooking), salves, hot pepper sauce, and pesto. Or simply stock up on all the veggies we have available and fill your freezers so you can make nourishing meals all Winter. We’ve found that the Scallion Roots make a very delicious stock! We came across this link for vegan “bone broth” that gives you lots of ideas for using up veggies ~ http://cleanfooddirtycity.com/recipes/healing-soup-with-vegan-bone-broth/

If you haven’t been convinced to start canning than maybe this comprehensive link (download included) will help ~ https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/135558/posts/1172189242

Preparing a Digestive Herbal Tea

We’ve been lucky in many ways with this season so far. It’s been the most productive and the longest tomato season ever! The drought has given incredible bumper crops to every commercial Tomato grower, so much that we, and others, are letting the fruits rot on the vines because the demand isn’t there. I guess folks don’t want Tomatoes as much as we thought they would. We’ve also got more Melons + Squash to harvest, that’s exciting! But, we weren’t able to plant new crops to tide us over for the rest of the season. There is an insect in the soil in all parts of our gardens that eats every root crop, crops that we rely on to extend the vegetable season well into November. Other insects (due to no Winter kill) have decimated every seedling we planted and despite using organic insecticides we could not beat them this year. Every season is different – different highs and different lows – and we must go with the flow and cross our fingers that there will be enough for everyone. CSA’s – community supported agriculture – help farmers remain viable because they value community and take the risks as well as the benefits.

VEGGIE OF THE WEEK IS EGGPLANT + SUMMER SQUASH

We’ve had these 2 vegetables available for many, many weeks now, but never in enough numbers to be an “official” veggie of the week. But as staples of the garden they deserve recognition. Every year since we started being market gardeners we hear that there is too much Eggplant and Zucchini (a type of Summer Squash) and every year we plan to plant less and less of them so that we have a steady supply versus an over-abundance. Eggplant are ready to harvest early in the season and give a steady supply until frost comes. We started growing smaller sized Eggplant a few years ago so that no one is stuck with large amounts of large Eggplant. This website is chock-full of recipes – hundreds of them – for both Eggplant and Summer Squash. We actually planted over 200 Summer Squash (mostly Patty Pans) this year but the seedlings were eaten by Striped Cucumber Beetles, the seedlings that managed to grow couldn’t produce fruit because the Cucumber Beetle ate the flowers. Even growing a large variety of this prolific fruit didn’t help us to have very much of this garden staple.

Q: Where do chickens come from?

A: The Egg-plant.

Huh?

Produce available this week (may vary depending upon location and availability): Salad Mix, Kale + Chard, Scallions, Beans, Sweet + Hot Peppers, Tomatoes (slicing, canning, cherry), Broccoli, Mushrooms, mini-Cucumbers, Savoy Cabbage, Kohlrabi, Eggplant, Summer Squash, Winter Squash, Garlic, and fresh herbs.

Spotted at the farm this week, Several Swallowtails munching on the same Wild Carrot plant, so many that they couldn’t all be photographed at once!

How many Swallowtails can you spot?

 Stay dry everyone!

 

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Autumnal Equinox

We are entering a time of balance, when night and day are *almost* equal. The Autumnal or Fall Equinox. A time when plants and veggies are still growing but much slower, the weeds are slower, too, and the insects are few. Dates to maturity for crops is a guessing game at this time of year but rather than “the end”, it’s merely the beginning of the end but there is still plenty to come.

http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/autumnal-equinox.html

On the harvest list this week (items vary depending upon location) :

We’ve got more Bartlett Pears and Asian Pears!

A treat this week from Stoney Point – Pears + Apples from 60 year old trees that were planted from heirlooms brought over from Italy and never sprayed! Hand-picked by Jean Tremblay, here’s what he shared on Facebook: “So you pick pears for three hours and drop some off to a Magician and he does this… Benjamin Leblanc-Beaudoin at The Iron Kettle Bed & Breakfast – A Pinot Grigio vanilla poached Stoney Point Pear with Chantill, and a biscotti crumble.” Priced at $1 a pound you can’t go wrong!

Dragon Beans + Blu Jay Snap Beans

Parsley

Summer Squash

Sweet Peppers – We’ve been freezing the purple peppers to use as pizza toppings this Winter!

Rainbow Kale and Rainbow Chard. Easy to freeze for the Winter! Just put whole leaves – stems and all – in a freezer bag and enjoy Kale and Chard all Winter long in smoothies, soups, stews, stir fries and more! A great way to use up your credits.

Okra (red + green)

Hot Peppers

Scallions

Broccoli Florets!

Wild Rainbow Salad Mix with Sunchoke Blossoms

Calendula Seeds – we’ve been including these in our salad mixes and we are offering the seeds for you to be able to grow your own! Wonderful dried to make healing salves and teas for sensitive skin, especially as a diaper rash cream – make your own medicine!

Calendula Blossoms

Pie Pumpkins and Squash

Eggplant

Fennel

Cherry Tomatoes

Sundried Tomatoes – dried to crunchy perfection these are a treat just as they are. Made using the sweetest of tomatoes, they can also be soaked in water and re-hydrated if needed for a certain recipe.

Turnips – a farm friend made the *most* delicious Turnip curry for us and we are waiting on the photo and recipe to share because it was the most delicious way we’ve ever eaten Turnips!

We have small amounts of frozen Sea Buckthorn if anyone is interested, please let us know in advance.

From around the farm this week…..

Oddy: “No, I don’t want to go inside! I want to prune this Tree!”

Bird’s Nest Fungus; Leopard Frog; Red-Underwing Moth (Oddy thinks this is the laziest name ever); Unidentified Spider with prey

From Facebook….

From a member: “Your kale made it in my homemade chicken noodle! It was yummy!”

Happy Equinox Everyone! May you all find your Peaceful Place…..

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