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In the share this week: 2.7 lbs tomatoes 1 napa cabbage 1 bok choy 1 bunch radishes 1 bunch green onions 1 poblano pepper 1 bag salad mix Thoughts from Farmer Anna: As promised, perhaps two weeks ago, I wanted to give you all a little chicken update. We moved the older laying hens we acquired this summer to a new spot last week and they seem quite happy (pic above). It was surprisingly hard to get them to move to a new area, but with a few tricks we managed to make it happen. I've heard that chickens don't really like change :) Their new area is the spot where we hope to build a bigger greenhouse as soon as late fall, or at the latest by early spring. The chickens will do a nice job of depositing lots of fertility over the ground that our veggies will love next season! We had a summer cover crop growing in part of this space (you can see it on the left) and Steve left a few strips of it unmowed so the birds would have some extra cover. After the ladies are done in this area we plan to move their coop into one of the hoop houses you can see in the back of the pic for the coldest part of winter. The young Icelandic chickens we've raised from chicks this spring are also doing well, and I'm excited to report that I found the very first egg from those hens today!! This week these chickens are 19 weeks old, so that seems just about right. The other hens in the group should start to lay soon as well. With those eggs, plus some additional eggs from newer hens at Pine Hill Farm we finally have enough to start offering some on our store for those of you who do not already have an egg share (you'll find those listed in the store, under the 'Meat and Eggs' category). We've been hoping to move the icelandics to a new area where we'll plant overwintering onions in about a month, but with the hot and dry weather the last couple of weeks we held off. We'll see if we can get them moved tomorrow afternoon. Think good chicken moving thoughts for us! Alrighty, on to the beautiful veggies this week! Just as the calendar turns officially to fall, the crops have a big change up as well. We are starting to harvest the big luscious greens again. I'm very pleased with our fall bok choy so far. It would be awesome in a stir fry this week, or maybe try adding some tomatoes to it as well. Here is a simple recipe idea that also calls for the green onions in your share: https://ladymoonfarms.com/bok-choy-with-ginger-tomatoes/ The hot weather of last week really helped to ripen up our tomatoes, so we are practically overflowing with them this week. That means this is the biggest tomato week of the season for you too. While we'll still continue to have tomatoes until the end of October, now is the time to make those last BLTs of the season while we have these nice big red tomatoes. Or maybe you just want to have a nice salad this week, with your salad mix, tomatoes and radishes. There are lots of great options! The napa cabbage in your shares is tall and gorgeous. I was a little disappointed by this planting when we fully took the row cover off to harvest on Monday, as some of the plants appear to not have formed correctly or some kind of herbivore has gotten into them. In any case, we have plenty of nice ones for this week and then we'll have to access the rest of the planting. It's a bummer because they were looking awesome when I weeded them a couple of weeks ago. You only have one poblano in the traditional share this week, but it would be a fun flavor to pair with some of the napa cabbage in a zesty coleslaw like this recipe below: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1023221-very-green-coleslaw-with-grilled-poblanos We are thankful for the rain early this week, but wish that it would now be done since we've gotten more than enough. Looks like weeding will certainly be back on the to-do list for next week!

In the share this week: 1.2 lb red slicer tomatoes 1 bunch cilantro 1 small garlic 1 butternut squash 1 bunch carrots 1 green bell pepper 2 jalapeno peppers 1 lb mixed onions 1 bag or bunch greens Thoughts from Farmer Anna: Finally we have tomatoes and cilantro together! We are so pleased with this planting of cilantro. I know it's a lot to be giving it for a third week in a row, but it is just so perfect and wonderful. We use a lot of fresh cilantro in our house right now, but if you find that you aren't using it up, you can always freeze some. Just blend it into a paste with olive oil, pack into a Ziploc bag and freeze flat. You can then break off a chunk when you need it for salsas, soups, or to make a killer paste with some garlic for fish. Those would make amazing fish tacos in fact. We did give you everything you need to make a nice pico de gallo this week, so maybe you'll use a good bit of your cilantro in this! https://natashaskitchen.com/pico-de-gallo/ We are onto a new planting of carrots and these are looking quite nice so we are bunching them with their greens this week. After this week, it will be awhile before we have carrots again. Our four beds of fall carrots are looking quite nice and we are going through to give them a second weeding this week so they can really start to take off. The sun and warmer temperatures this week are coming at a good time to help some of the summer crops continue to ripen up and the fall crops to put on good growth. We are just planting the very last lettuces for the season this week. These will mature in about 5-6 weeks and give us salad mix for the end of the season. We also seeded our overwintering onions last week - the last greenhouse seeding of the year. We had planned to do 16 flats (each 72 cells), but ended up with 20 total since we had more seed left over. I've been so impressed by the overwintered onions and how well they cure and store compared to our spring planted ones. We may end up just going with the majority overwintered storage onions, along with some fresh sweet and long red onions next year. Our spring planted crop of yellow onions was fairly disappointing this year, I think mostly due to the wet conditions early this summer. OOh, I just remembered another very delicious recipe you could use your cilantro! It was one of our favorite dishes at a local brew pub up in Madison, WI called 'The Great Dane'. Definitely go check them out if you are ever up that way. Anyway, they had this Inner Warmth Peanut Stew on the menu that is fabulous. I've put the recipe up on the blog here: https://www.rainsandsun.com/single-post/2015/11/23/inner-warmth-peanut-stew. The squash you are getting in your share is around 2 lbs so it should work out pretty well with this recipe, but you could go a little lighter on some of the ingredients. Don't worry about it being too precise, you can really fudge this recipe. All right, that's all for now! Hope you have a great week :)

In the share this week: 1 bag carrots Mixed sweet peppers 2-3 poblano peppers Arugula, kale or swiss chard 1 head lettuce 1 bunch cilantro 1 lb yellow onions 1 pie pumpkin or butternut squash Thoughts from Farmer Anna: The cooler weather over the last couple of weeks has brought the greens back into our shares! I'm very excited to share these beautiful greens with you - either arugula, lacinato kale or Swiss chard - since we don't have quite enough of any of them to give everyone. We are also giving a head of lettuce this week - either a really pretty red Romaine or our summer crisp. It would be a great week for a fresh salad, mixing some of these greens together. We'll have plenty more greens coming up in the next couple of months as well. The pic above shows the lettuce field we are about to harvest from this week, along with some radicchio that will be ready toward the end of October. It is certainly a little dry on the farm this week since it's been about two weeks since we've had any significant rain. Fingers crossed we'll get a decent amount this Thursday as a cold front moves through. We're still working on getting all of our new fall crops weeded and the dry weather is fairly good for that (although you do need some moisture in the beds for best weed pulling or hoeing, so irrigating the day or two before is optimal). We are getting a couple more beds ready for fall quick greens - spicy salad mix, arugula and baby kale. The spinach I seeded last week is just starting to pop. It's been a few years since we've had decent fall spinach so fingers crossed the cool weather will continue and we'll have a nice crop. Well we are still waiting for the tomatoes to come back on in earnest (and still battling the raccoons as well). I'm hopeful that we'll have some very nice red tomatoes to share with you next week! In the meantime, you could use more of that amazing cilantro in your share, along with your peppers and onions in this super yummy dip that my mother-in-law likes to make for parties. In fact, I probably should have shared this recipe last week so you could make it for your labor day parties! https://www.spendwithpennies.com/cowboy-caviar/ More winter squash is coming your way, with either pumpkins or butternut squash this week! All of these squashes will keep for months, so don't feel like you need to cook with it right away if you'd rather wait. It will be nice and cool this Thursday though, so maybe a silky soup is in order? Maybe something like this and you can even use your cilantro! https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/curried_squash_soup/ Have a nice week everyone!