Greetings from the farm. This week we thought we would talk just a bit about the seasonality of the CSA boxes. For some of you eating seasonally may be a new concept. Our grocery stores do a great job of offering produce year round--and hiding the seasonality of local foods--by bringing in produce from all around the country and the world where growing seasons are different than here in Western PA. So we often get used to having tomatoes in the winter and lettuces in the summer. But those are hard things to pull off in our climate.
So while we do try to extend the growing seasons with techniques like shade cloths and field tunnels to either keep plants more warm or cool to their liking, we are also happy to embrace the fact that different produce thrives at different seasons of the year. How great does that summer tomato taste? Or how happy are we when those lettuces return in the fall?
We appreciate your willingness to have a good part of your weekly meal plan dictated by what we can grow on a given week in our half dozen acres of soil. No doubt, it's a different way of eating that runs up against the norms of having all foods available all the time.
Perhaps this is a good time to tease a few items we have to look forward to--3 types of green beans (see picture), potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, broccolini, ground cherries, kale, swiss chard, paste tomatoes, winter squash, and hopefully some carrots too. Plus our crew is out there today transplanting more herbs (to replace the ones that were flooded in June). Oh, and did I mention more lettuces and salad mix?
Feel free to send us feedback on items that you can't get enough of and others that you would like to see less. And remember that you can always adjust your produce preferences via your Harvie page. So take advantage of that cool feature too.
As always, thanks for the support!
Farmer Neil, on behalf of the crew
ps--For those of you who get a bread share: Please note that this coming week the bread will be Mediterra's Mt Athos Fire bread instead of the usual Rivendale loaves. If you would like to reschedule your bread delivery, you can do that this weekend until Sunday at 8pm.
