As we push on later into the season, the crew's schedule has gradually become a little more laid-back. Starting Wednesday last week we moved our start time up to 8am. Not only is it still a little dark at 7am, but with the colder weather, early morning harvests are a bit of a challenge. Harvesting with knives requires nimble fingers both for efficiency and for safety (and while gloves keep your hands a little warmer, they do make your hands less dexterous!). Plus, sometimes crops are still frozen in the morning and need to thaw out before we can begin harvesting. Our open-air wash station can also be an uncomfortable place to work in the colder temps, so overall it made sense to push our harvest back to a warmer part of the day. We usually start our days splitting seed garlic cloves or cleaning up shallots while we wait for the sun to fully hit our fields around 9am. Once it warms up we start harvesting lettuce, greens, cabbage, leeks, beets, carrots, turnips and radishes. This time of year is nice, because many of the crops we are giving out in the share now were harvested early this fall or over the summer, like winter squash, onions and garlic.
Many of our non-harvest projects this past week were related to next season: planting and mulching next year's garlic, putting row cover over our first ever crop of over-wintered onions and scallions, mulching next year's strawberries, trying out seeding an experimental crop of winter greens in our unheated hoophouse, seeding the last of our fall cover crops, and finalizing next year's budget. We're also researching some small equipment and infrastructure upgrades that could help us out for next season. It's a nice feeling winding down a successful season, but also really exciting to think about what we can do next season to further improve the CSA.
*Important note on renewals: Normally we hand out renewal forms for next season beginning in Week 21 of the share, but we are still working with upper management in the Trustees to figure out an appropriate price. Hopefully we will have those forms ready to hand out during our last week of distribution (which is next week!). Any forms that are not picked up in the shareroom by the end of the last week will be mailed out.
What's in the share: Lettuce, Greens, Collards, Cabbage, Bok Choi, Napa Cabbage, Daikon Radish, Celery, Carrots, Beets, Turnips, Leeks, Red Onions, Garlic, Potatoes, Winter squash (Sugar Dumpling, Red Kuri, Delicata or Pie Pumpkins), PYO Herbs and PYO Corn Stalks.
New this week: Butternut squash, Sweet Potatoes, Celeriac, Watermelon Radish, Nero Tondo Radishes, Parsnips.
