In the share this week:
1 napa cabbage
1 small butternut squash
1 small garlic
1 bag sugar snap peas
1 bag salad mix
1 bag baby kale
4 banana peppers
Bonus tomatoes!
Thoughts from Farmer Anna:
Welcome to fall! Nearly all of our fall crops are growing well and looking lovely. The picture above shows a bed of salad turnips on the left and arugula on the right. I took it last week and when I checked on those crops today I think they've doubled in size. Looks like next week's share should include some beautifully tender arugula! Now that the crops are in the ground and we've nearly caught up on weeding, we are turning our attention to getting winter cover crops in some of the fields. Over the winter we want our beds to either have a late fall crop, an overwintering cover crop, or be covered with tarps so that we don't have any major soil erosion happening. When the soil is cold and tight over winter it doesn't absorb water as easily and when we get heavy rains, the water tends to pick up loose soil that isn't well rooted with crops. The way it works out, we probably have about 1/3 of our beds in cover crops, 1/3 in late fall crops and 1/3 covered by tarps.
Other than prepping some beds for cover crop seeding, our big project this week is to start our sweet potato harvest! I have high hopes for the sweet potatoes this year since their greens have been looking fabulous and healthy. We planted two varieties this year - the traditional orange, and an asian white flesh variety that is supposed to be really delicious. After harvest, these roots will need to cure for 1-2 weeks before we start giving them in shares. Hot, dry conditions are good for curing, so we use one of our small greenhouses for this purpose. Cross your fingers that the voles haven't taken their share from too many of the potatoes. Damage from those little rodents is usually the biggest threat to our yields.
Lots of cooler weather veggies are making their reappearance in shares this week! I'm excited about the baby kale and sugar snap peas for sure. I've also been loving the big beautiful napa cabbages we've been harvesting. I think I may make some cabbage egg drop soup for our farm lunch tomorrow:
You could use your baby kale in salads mixed with your salad mix, or if you want to cook with it, kale makes a great pairing with butternut squash. Something like this recipe below (use your whole squash since it's small), maybe add the banana peppers too?
Well I didn't officially put tomatoes in the share this week since we've given you all a good bit over the last few months, but we still have a decent amount this week so I decided to give everyone some bonus tomatoes! Hopefully you aren't sick of them yet :)
Have a good one!