As we round out the last full week of September, we are appreciating the crisp nights, changing leaves, and impending slow-down that will accompany the end of pepper harvest in a couple of weeks. Tonight's forecast low of 39°F reminds us that frost is not far off, so we've been busy harvesting the frost-sensitive storage crops.
This week, we brought in over 12,000 lbs of winter squash, and there should be another 4,000+ lbs still out in the field to be collected next week. After that, our sights are set on sweet potatoes, which are very intolerant of frost. That is our most tedious fall harvest, as the tubers need to be handled very gently to keep their skins intact, and harvest must be followed by a ~5-day curing process at 80° and 80% humidity to heal wounds and convert starch to sugar (making them sweet!). Sweet potatoes are grown primarily for our winter CSA, but if we get them picked and cured in time, we hope to dole some out in one of the final summer share boxes this year.
Towards season-end, we also begin thinking about winterization, especially making sure no equipment or infrastructure contains water that could freeze, expand, and damage components during winter. One big one is our irrigation system. While I generally hope to be done irrigating by this point in the season, we are quite dry out here. The last couple of weather systems promising heavy rain petered out and delivered a 10th or two (or none). So while the majority of our crops still out in the field are nearly fully grown and don't need much in the way of water, the few that have some growing to do (radishes, spinach, baby kale, head lettuce) might need to get irrigated if the sky doesn't deliver soon. We are very pleased to have had a season with very limited severe weather, but could use one last shot of rain!
Notes on select items in this week's share:
- Delicata Squash: Here's one we're all excited about! There are so many way to enjoy these beauties. A favorite of mine is to cut them in half, lengthwise, scoop out the seeds, then cut them into half-rings with skin on (delicata skin is edible). Coat in olive oil, salt, black pepper, and perhaps a bit of rosemary and/or sage, then roast in a single layer in the oven or fry in a pan.
- Colored Bell Peppers: We are approaching the end of the pepper season, but there are still lots of nice ones out there and they're some of the sweetest of the year. These will be heavy on red, but some folks may see an orange or yellow mixed in, depending on what we find in the field.
- Kale: This year, we omitted lacinato/dinosaur kale from the early and midsummer kale successions. We know this is a favorite of many (us too!) but it's historically very susceptible to caterpillar and flea beetle damage, along with a couple of foliar diseases. We often ended up harvesting a negligible portion of these earlier plantings. So this year we just tacked it in at the end of the year, and it's looking pretty good! Still more caterpillar holes than other varieties, so you may see a small hole or two in some of your leaves, but we'll cull the worst of these and feed them to the pigs :) We also have some nice looking green curly kale from this 3rd and final kale succession of the season.
- Arugula: Lovely little fall bed of arugula! It'll be small-leaved (not quite has baby as grocery store clams, but petit for our standards) with just a bit of heat. Very nice for fresh eating in a salad.
- Cilantro: With this last cilantro of the season, consider making a sauce for a Southwest-style grain bowl or use in a beet salad such as this one.
What's coming up? Over the next couple of shares, we expect to see baby kale mix, broccoli, bunched red radish, parsley, spinach, and acorn squash. We also will be bringing in some potatoes from our friends at Driftless Organics, so expect potatoes in one of the remaining summer shares.
Just a reminder that this is Week 17 out of 20, so just three more boxes before the end of the summer season. Then we take one week off from deliveries before starting up our winter season the week of November 1. We will have some more focused communications on this topic over the next couple weeks, but feel free to go ahead and sign up right away! Some of our winter pickup locations are limited in capacity (a couple have already filled up).
If you don't plan to continue with a winter share, be sure to use up any credits you may have on your account. You can find out your credit balance on this webpage. Credits can be used to cover swap upcharges and to purchase extras.
Have a great week!
Dana
