Fall work

Meet this week’s Mac veggies:


  • Delicata squash — The first of the winter squash harvest! This is a CSA favorite squash — its smaller size makes it suitable for single serving preparations. See recipe in this week’s newsletter for more ideas. These are freshly harvested and will continue to sweeten in storage. Keep them in a dry warm place (your kitchen counter works) and wait a few days before preparing for maximum sweet flavor!
  • Salad mix — There are so many tasty fresh greens in the fields right now, and we wanted you to taste them all! This salad mix features: arugula, lettuce, baby kale, and more!
  • Chard — I’ve included two chard specific recipes in this week’s newsletter.
  • Broccoli OR cabbage
  • Sweet peppers
  • Summer squash OR eggplant
  • Carrots
  • Red onions

It’s that time of year — time to start closing up shop, finishing the work of the year and preparing the farm for the cold, wet season.

Of course, since we continue harvesting almost all year-round, we’re not really closing up shop the way that some farms do in the fall. But, nonetheless, there are things to be done that feel very final this time of year.

For example, this week the crew picked up all the irrigation from the fields and stacked it back onto trailers for the winter. Casey took advantage of an unexpected sunny window this Saturday to disc some empty fields and sow cover crops. And, in between work elsewhere, Casey and the crew took turns harvesting winter squash to store for the next few months.

It turns out that it was a stellar winter squash year, as you will discover when eating this week’s first share of delicata squash. With the late spring and slow start to summer, we were not expecting to have such a bountiful harvest of abundant, large fruit, but our squash storage room is fuller than full.

The next few weeks include similar work: moving equipment under cover (especially our new combine!), cleaning up bits and pieces from the fields, and continuing to harvest storage crops.

Also, this is the time of year when we start seriously thinking about next year, in part based on the input from your survey responses (which we are still collecting, by the way!). So far, the surveys we’ve read have been positive, especially regarding the new share size options (which was the biggest change of this year)!

We’re using the survey feedback to put together next year’s CSA options and hope to have a sign-up form out with a week or two so that you can commit to our upcoming 2012 season.

In the meantime, enjoy the changing flavors in the share. I’ve included more recipes than usual this week to help give you some fall menu ideas! These recipes are all classic favorites here on our farm — some of them might be familiar to long-time CSA members, but we figured even old-timers could use reminders.

Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

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