On Saturday morning we had our first frost of the
season. It came a full three weeks
earlier than last year’s first frost and just a few days before the fall
equinox. By 9am the beans and basil were
no more than a soggy mess while the sunflowers and cilantro managed to slip by
without serious harm. Frost isn’t just a
killer of summer crops it also causes many of our fall crops to mature and
sweeten. For the farmers this is the beginning
of chilly harvest mornings, icy fingers and soaking frozen dew but it is also a
time of incredible sweetness and beauty.
I am shocked to report that we achieved a good deal of our
goals for last week. This almost never
happens! Although we still need to
harvest our butternut squash, the majority of our winter squash field has been
cleared and seeded with cover crop. Our
limiting factor on finishing this task isn’t time but rather space to store the
harvested butternut and squash bins to hold them. Onions are all harvested and cured and the
field is prepped for seeding more peas and rye.
We still need to finish cleaning up tomato trellising and landscape
fabric but we have made a solid start on our fall clean up.
This week we hope to begin brining in our sweet potatoes
which require a period to cure before they reach the share room. We also need to thin our direct seeded Bok
Choi and Napa Cabbage. Last year we had
great success with over wintering Bridger onions and we are hoping to expand
our planting for this year. This means
laying beds of plastic mulch and lots of transplanting. If we finish all of these tasks we may have
time to begin weeding our spring planted strawberries.
With October around the corner and many of our storage crops
in the barn or curing in the green house it is time to begin thinking about our
Thanksgiving share. After the regular
CSA season ends you have the chance to sign up for one last supersized share to
be picked up the week before Thanksgiving.
The share contains 40lbs of mostly storage crops and is great for either
large family meals over the holiday season or for rich savory meals deep into
January and February. The cost of the
Thanksgiving share is $80 and order forms will be available in the barn this
week. Please get your order form in as
soon as you can. Space is limited and we
will open this offer to the public after the first three weeks.
What’s in the share: Lettuce, escarole, greens, yellow
onions, shallots, garlic, spaghetti squash, delicata squash, chard, beats, kale,
PYO herbs
What’s new: Red onions, acorn squash
