More delicious veggies and fruits coming your way in shares this week!
This weeks share has some fall favorites included along with some late summer treats including the last of the tomatoes and some tasty sweet peppers. The spaghetti squash from Hallbrook Farm in this weeks share is a great vehicle for blending the seasons. Cut squash in half lengthwise and roast, scoop out the tasty stringy inside and top with a fresh tomato sauce from your slicers or cherry tomatoes. The thai basil from Bahner farm is a delicious addition to a curry on one of these cool nights or you can use it as a salad garnish. Leave it out of the fridge sitting in a jar of water and enjoy it's sweet scent in your kitchen until you eat it! We are excited to have some tasty first of the fall radishes this week from Buckle Farm!
Ironwood Farm has some beautiful cauliflower for us this week, but ran a little short in supply. If you don't see the cauliflower you expected in your share this week, we will make sure to get it in next weeks share for you. It will be substituted with green cabbage. Ken and I love shredding up these juicy green heads, sautéing it with onions and ground beef or lamb. Leaves can also be blanched and used for spring role wrappers, a last of the summer cole slaw, or your first batch of fall sauerkraut. Thanks for understanding and you support of us small growers and working with the availability of what we've got growing in our fields seasonally.
This weeks Fruit Share: This week, enjoy the last of summer with a delicious watermelon from Harvest Tide Organic Farm and some delicious Manitoba and Beacon late summer apples from Teltane Farm. We will be getting a variety of apples from Mark and Paula Fulford from Teltane over the course of the fall. They specialized in unique varieties that suit our climate here in Maine and ones that thrive without the use of synthetic pesticides. Although not certified organic they follow practices in line with organic production and their farming practices and do not use any synthetic pesticides or fertilizers.
Update from South Paw Farm
Here at South Paw, we're relishing those cool nights and mornings. It
is that perfect time of year when plunking on watermelons and picking
sungold cherry tomatoes is still possible, but we know the end is
near, so each melon slice feels special. Kale, broccoli and
cauliflower have been loving the last month of consistent rain and
cooler temperatures and pest pressure seems to have laid off, at least
for now. Pepper plants are still loaded with green fruit, ripening
daily. The big push up to the Common Ground has us collecting all we
can from our fields.
We're a little late getting the last of our onion crop in, but only
because its a bumper crop and the curing process required that we bang
together a dozen more drying racks. We're racing the frost to get the
rest of our onions and winter squash in, and hopefully by the end of
the week we will have all of our frost sensitive stuff in and the
pressure will be off. We're really looking forward to having
everything picked, washed, bagged and stored for the winter, but
realistically that's another 6 weeks off. Wish us luck!
Update from Locust Grove Orchard
The Locust Grove produces 14 varieties of peaches in Albion, Maine. Even rarer than peaches in Maine is the fact that these peaches are not sprayed with any chemicals at all. (Peaches are usually one of the “dirtiest” or most chemically intensive crops to produce.) Nestled atop a hill, which provides an ideal microclimate for peach trees and views of Kathadin to the North and the Presidential Mountains to the west, this bucolic orchard has grown peaches for the last 32 years. The orchard was stated by Gordon Kenyon. Colleen, now co-Owner and successor to the orchard, has worked with Gordon the past six years, gleaning peach production wisdom and expanding markets for this special Maine crop. You can check out their website for more information.
