EverGreen Farm

CSA Newsletter, Week #19

In your share this week:

• Zucchini or Summer Squash - the plants aren't done yet
• Sweet Onions
• Leeks
• Carrots
• Cabbages - last of the season
• Cauliflower
• Shell Peas
• French Fillet Beans
• Dill
• Tomatoes
• Hugarian Hot Wax Pepper -  
• Green Bell Pepper - only for Afton, Alpine & Smoot.  Jackson next week.
• Yukon Gold Potatoes

This will be a short newsletter so I can be off to make deliveries and get home again to dig potatoes.  A little more than half of the rows were harvested last Saturday before the project was called off due to the ground being too muddy.  We are making another attempt at it this evening.

We are just starting to harvest the peppers this week.  They are coming on slowly.  Usually, the Hugangarina Hot Wax peppers get a little more kick to them as time goes on.  The Bell pepper plants are just putting out a few larger pepper and soon there will be enough for everyone at the same time.

Cabbages are done for the year.  I was thinking back on this crop today.  These cabbage plants were some of the very first transplants put outisde into the greenhouses and here we are getting their last yield this late in the season.  Shain has picked us a good variety!  They aren't meant to grow any larger than a softball and I like the smaller size.  It's a little more manageable for my fridge and for recipes.

Greenhouse #7 was delivered this past week.  It's the first time in all our greenhouse deliveries that the shipping company loaded the 2,000+ lb. containers on a truck with a back-end lifting gate.  For all the other deliveries, we had to unload the shipment one piece at a time.  I can't tell you how happy this made me, and the 4 other men who were here to help.

It's our last farmers market this Saturday, September 24th in Jackson.  We have had a great year at the market and wish to thank the Jackson community for supporting us there. 

Have a great week and ENJOY your veggies!

Tara

CSA Newsletter, Week #18

In your share this week:

• Cucumbers
• Squash and/or Zucchini
• Swiss Chard
• Shell Peas
• Red Norland Potatoes
• Italian Flat Leaf Parsley
• Broccoli, last of the season
• Cauliflower, for members in Smoot, Alpine & Afton
• Tomatoes
• Sweet Onions

Farmer Shain is also the head chef in this home.  He loves to cook and is often thinking of and looking up recipes for our fresh garden produce.  When planning what to harvest for this week's CSA share, he was insistant that if we harvest shell peas we must also dig up some red potatoes.  They go together!  And so they are this week, just so you can make one of his favorite dishes - Creamed Fresh Peas with New Potatoes, recipe here.  Enjoy!

Speaking of potatoes.  This weekend we will start digging up all our potatoes.  This is a HUGE, time consuming project.  We would love your help and encourage you to take this opportunity to come visit and support your farm.  There are even jobs for those with physical limitations.  We will start early Saturday morning and continue until the work is done.  (Please call or email if you can come help.)

The cucumbers, squash and zucchini are starting to tapper off now. (It took me a third look through all the cucumber plants to get enough to for this week's shares.)  These plants have been very fruitful this year and our weekly harvests have been pentiful and somethimes even a little overwhelming.  The pigs have eaten their fair share of the three and it makes me feel much better that they are here to make sure nothing goes to waste.

We've also found a new use for over sized or left over zucchini and cucumbers - target shooting.  No joke.  Just prop one end down in between some rocks, aim, shoot and *splat*.  Sometimes it takes a few extra shots to blow up the bigger zucchini, but a cucumber usually explodes within a shot or two. :)  Shain, myself and others have commented that shooting produce to pieces is quite enjoyable.  (Shain and I use the word "satisfying", an indication that we have both put in a lot of hours on the farm this year.)   In know this may sound completely bizare to some of you, but we do live out in the country on a farm.  Having a few rifles around is a necessary part of life.  This is the first year I've felt inclined to learn how to load and shoot a gun.  And not to brag or anything, but I'm a pretty good shot.

Some exciting news for the farm is that we have ordered another greenhouse - # 7!  I thought we were through buying greenhouses and moving on to building smaller hooped tunnels, but apparently not.  Shain says we need just one more, maybe two.  He has been so impressed with the improved quality we experience growing certain crops in greenhouses and decided it's not worth the fight of trying to grow them outside.  What will this mean for the CSA?  Since Shain is the head farmer here, I can't tell you for sure what he plans to plant inside the new covered space, but I can tell you the CSA will get even better next year.  Just as we are much better this year than last.  However, in an effort to be completely upfront, I should also point out that some of the new greenhouse space will be prioritized for growing crops we take to sell at the farmers market.  Selling higly popular crops as early as possible at the market is how we earn extra funds needed for farm improvements.  But overall, everyone involved in our farm will benefit from this new greenhouse. 

Have a great week and ENJOY your veggies!

 

CSA Newsletter, Week #17

In your share this week:

• Cucumbers
• Zucchini or Summer Squash
• Carrots
• Sweet Onions
• Cabbage
• Broccoli
• Basil
• Cilantro
• Tomatoes
• Cauliflower (for Jackson folks this week, will rotate to others in coming weeks)

In my last newsletter I hinted that this week's share would be small because we were not going to harvest on Monday, Labor Day.  We did take the weekend off farm work, which was quite enjoyable (I could get used to sleeping in like that).  Then today we had a large crew of workers here so we were able to harvest another great share of farm produce. 

Regarding the tomatoes, we have four varities growing in the greenhouses this year but only two of them are ripening so far.  These plants have just started producing enough for a weekly CSA share and we aren't sure what will happen with the others now that temperatures are dipping.  Meanwhile, they are just as wonderful tasting as I remember.  When we harvest tomatoes for you, some will be perfect to eat right away and others could use a few days sitting on the counter to ripen at home. 

My observations on a few crops over the past week:  The cauliflower are coming on nicely, though quite a chore to clean free of bugs (a lot of earwigs).  I saw lots of baby peppers today.  The zucchini and squash in the greenhouses are starting to slow down.  The zucchini outside are nearly done due to the frost we got last week.  This last planting of cilantro is starting to bolt, that's why you've been getting it so frequently.  The dill is bolting now too.  Parlsey looks good and we'll start harvesting that soon.  The cabbages are really getting attacked by the bugs.  There are probably just enough left for one more CSA harvest. 

There are many more crops growing and will be ready in coming weeks:  leeks, peas, potatoes, beets, fennel, and more.

Have a great week and ENJOY your veggies!

Tara