Seasonal photo from the week! Oh my the fall colors!
This time of year, the pressure of work shifts significantly. Casey and the crew begin to feel a lightening load, beginning first with the end of irrigation season (freeing up hours of labor every day). Then, as the final plantings and sowings of the year get in the ground, our attention turns to harvest. We’ve already brought in all of the onions and winter squash, and beginning this week we’ll start on the storage roots and cabbages and kohlrabi. It will take us several weeks to get it all in, rinsed, and put into cold storage.
But, the load of farm work also shifts in other directions. As the person in charge of every thing paperwork related to the farm, my load picks up as the weather cools. This weekend I spent many hours on the computer catching up with the books and preparing our 2014 CSA information for both programs (Full Diet and Vegetable).
We spent a lot of time thinking and discussing the Vegetable CSA as we planned. After a lot of analysis and pondering how to keep this program as awesome as possible, we decided to make a fairly significant change for 2014. We’re going back to our classic CSA model — one share size, contents of which are decided by us here on the farm. We are super excited about returning to our roots and reviving a more traditional CSA experience for our members.
Sign up for our 2014 CSA now! We’re taking sign-ups for this program starting this week! We’ll have paper info and forms at CSA pick-up in the coming weeks, but you can also download more details and the sign-up form by clicking this link: 2014VeggieCSA_Info_Signup
Full Diet folks will receive their 2014 info via email later this week. If you’re curious, we will be adding a few additional households to that program. If you are interested in joining it for 2014, please let us know so we can provide you with more information!
October is also an important time for us to begin the long season reflection process. Putting together our next year’s CSA details is the start of this process, because it forces us to consider the logistics and outcome of everything we do — What feedback have we received from customers? Did we meet our financial goals? Did we enjoy the pace of the workweek? So many questions come up just as we prepare these forms! We’ll continue reflecting through the fall and early winter, thinking about specific plantings, fertility in the fields, weed management, labor dynamics, and more.
But in the immediate future, we have one last 2013 seasonal happening to plan. Our annual Pumpkin Patch CSA Open House is coming up! This year, the event will be Sunday, October 27, from 1 – 3 pm here on the farm. It will most likely be on the “new land” across the creek from the farm. I’ll post directions and final location details in next week’s newsletter. But for sure we’ll have live music, farm tours, pumpkins, and an apple tasting! Try different varieties side-by-side to taste how they differ! All CSA members are invited to join us, and we’ll be busy preparing the farm for your arrival over the next two weeks. We hope you can join us for 2013’s last hoorah!
And, if you’re wondering or forgotten, our 2013 Vegetable CSA ends on November 19 (that is the final pick-up day). We’ll do our usual Thanksgiving Holiday Harvest the following week. And, we’d like to receive your 2014 Commitment Form before the end of November! Then we’ll mail you your confirmation materials and invoice at the first of the year! Wow — seeing all those events laid out like that makes me realize how quickly the end of 2013 is coming! We still have weeks and months, but they will likely fly by.
But before they do, we are soaking in this golden Autumn sunlight and taking moments to step away from computer work and planning to just be in this amazing time and space. Have I mentioned how glorious it is on the farm in the fall? Oh, yes indeed. I hope you too have been savoring the season and its splendors.
Enjoy this week’s vegetables!
Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla
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Meet this week’s vegetables:
- Cut lettuce
- Arugula
- Chard
- Kale
- Kohlrabi — Fall flavors are here! For some reason, in spite of the glorious summer, our fall cole crop planting has been slower to come on than we expected. The plants are all enormous, but they are taking their time doing things like putting out broccoli heads and such. Nonetheless, it has begun. Hoorah!
- Broccoli
- Sweet & green peppers — A mix of colored and green peppers. These are not hot!
- Carrots
- Sunchokes
- Summer squash & zucchini
