Looking ahead …

We harvested the first of the winter squash last week. Nothing quite like the bed of a large truck filled with delicious squash for fall and winter eating!

Here on the farm, September is all kinds of wonderfulness. We’re bringing in so. much. food. these days, with much more continuing to mature and grow in the fields for later harvests in fall and winter (and some even in early spring!).

And the funny thing is: even though September is the culmination of one season, it’s also the beginning of the next. Because many of the foods we are harvesting now will be a part of our 2015 sales. Not surprising then, that this is also the moment in the year when we very seriously pause to reflect on the season that is coming to a close and intentionally look ahead to the next season.

Certainly, we can’t make very specific plans for 2015 yet — we will spend much of our winter season reflecting and tinkering and charting out planting plans — but this is the time when we start painting the broad outlines of next season. Will we take on anything dramatically different or new? Will we invest more energy in this enterprise or that enterprise? How big do we want to be? It’s useful for us to have general guiding goals both for our budget and operating goals before the next year even begins. We’ve been doing a lot of “envisioning” this last week, crunching numbers on different enterprises and assessing our priorities for 2015.

Which is why September is also Survey Season! We took a few years off from offering CSA surveys, perhaps because it was One More Thing To Do amidst years of Lots of Things To Do. Nonetheless, we want to revive this tradition as a way to simply check in with our CSA members more intentionally. Since I’ve been publishing the newsletters exclusively online the last few years, I figured I’d stay with the internet for the survey, so 2014’s survey can be found on Survey Monkey here (just click the link). The survey has seven simple questions, and we’d appreciate your feedback so that we can consider it as we continue our own planning! I generally like to listen to survey responses for a few weeks and then share some more of our own reflections as a wrap up, often right before releasing our next season’s sign-up details. So you can expect to hear more on the topic in the coming weeks.

But there are a few things I did want to share with you now. First, in regards to the fall abundance, we’ve recently advertised a special Fall CSA season as a way for new CSA members to try out our program for a shorter season at first (just nine weeks). They’ll be joining our existing CSA members in the same program that is already in motion, but we’re excited to bump up our numbers in this bountiful season and bring some fresh energy to our farm’s community as a whole. You can find info about that season here: http://www.oakhillorganics.org/2014/join-us-for-the-fall-season/

For existing members, if you have a friend you’d like to refer to this program, please ask them to mention your name when they sign up! Long ago, we offered folks credit toward their account for recommending our farm to others, and we’d like to revive that program as a way to thank you all for sharing the news. If a new member mentions your name, we’ll add a credit for one week of veggies to your 2015 account!

And, another very exciting project is on the horizon for 2015. I hatched this idea this last week and got super jazzed about it. I realized that next year is our TENTH season as a farm and CSA. (Holy moly — where does the time go?) It feels fitting to celebrate such an occasion with some kind of special project. So, I’m finally going to do it: I’m going to put together and publish a FARM COOKBOOK! I am sooooooooo excited about this project. All 2015 CSA members will receive a copy as part of their share! I already have recipes and cooking suggestions running through my head all day long (I need more time to type them out). I plan to load it with my general style of recipes and cooking suggestions: super simple, flexible ways to really enjoy and savor all these fresh flavors. But, in addition to my voice and cooking philosophy, I thought it would be lovely to include recipes from past and present CSA members too.

So, here is a call for vegetable recipes and serving suggestions!!! What I’d especially love to receive is your one or two absolute favorite “go to” recipes for using farm fresh seasonal vegetables. What are the preparation methods that your family consistently loves? I’m especially interested in hearing ideas for the less easy-to-love vegetables (fennel and beets immediately come to mind as challenging for some!). I will probably send out a separate email in the coming week reminding folks about the project and asking again (including former members in the call too at that point). Please email me your ideas: farm (at) oakhillorganics (dot) org. You can also drop off printed submissions to Casey and pick-up or mail them to me. Please provide your name so that I can give you credit in the book. And, since I really have no idea what kind of response I’ll receive, I guess I should add that I plan to include everything I receive, but if I receive overlapping ideas, I may have to give credit to a few people at once. I trust that folks will understand if their recipes get edited or whatnot. It will all be done in the spirit of good eating and community. I am super excited about a fun fall and winter project that will help us start our 2015 season in a celebratory mood!

To bring us back to 2014, a few more items worth noting: First, I want to remind folks that our Pumpkin Patch Open House is coming up next month: Sunday, October 26, 2 – 4 pm out here at the farm. We’ll have pumpkins (of course), another fun vegetable or fruit tasting (haven’t decided on what yet! This is always fun!), and once again: LIVE MUSIC! This year, we will be honored to host the newly formed local musical duo Awaken Jane, Jamie Corff and Emily Jones. We love it when good food gets to overlap with good music! So make sure you get the date on your calendar, and then pray a little for clear weather!

Second, I want to announce that we have extra sauce/roma tomatoes for sale. If you’d like to put up some tomatoes in the coming weeks, please let us know and we will bring you some at pick-up! They are $2/lb with a 10% discount for orders $100 and over. So, a 50 lb order would be $90 (and that would be about two of our blue totes worth of tomatoes). Email us with your orders — if we hear from you tonight, we can even bring them tomorrow! farm (at) oakhillorganics (dot) org.

Heaven on a plate!

And, finally, we have to send out a huge thanks to the organizers of Bounty of Yamhill County, the Big Dinner portion of which occurred last night. Our farm has contributed produce to the event every year, but we’ve not been able to attend the dinner. Casey stayed home with the kids last night so I could attend, and WOW what a magical evening of community and delicious food. Farms and artisan food providers from all over the county paired with chefs from some of our area’s best restaurants to create delicious mini-bites of food. All those mini-bites added up to one of the most amazing meals I’ve ever eaten. I took a photo of my plate to share with the kiddos (who wanted to know what I would be eating), and I thought I’d share it here too, just because it was so beautiful and represents so much talent and dedicated hard work from members of our community. This wasn’t even all of it (could only fit so much on my plate at once!). A truly unique and lovely dinner experience (and a fundraiser for the Yamhill Enrichment Society no less!).

My, how this late summer feels full and rich with thoughts, plans, harvests, and happenings! And fall is approaching … the kids have already started carving those pumpkins Rusty harvested from his garden last week. Today we ate toasted pumpkin seeds as a snack. And this morning we woke to a farm enclosed in white fog — such a common sight in coming seasons.

And, the food. Always the food. Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

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Meet this week’s vegetables:

• 

  The kids like to make sure the vegetables are good before we harvest for you guys. Especially the sweet corn. They've checked and double-checked and triple-checked on this crop.

  Concord grapes — According to an old timer on the island, these grape vines were planted from cuttings brought over on the Oregon Trail. Whether that story is exactly true or not, the vines are old, and the grapes are of the Concord variety. You will recognize the flavor, since this is the grape flavor that gets used in everything (and the grapes used for juice!). Be warned: these pack super sweet awesome flavor as well as seeds.

• Sweet corn — HOORAH!
• Tomatoes — Lots of heirloom tomatoes in this week’s share. As a reminder, heirloom tomatoes often come in different colors that often belie their awesome rich tomato flavor. So, don’t shy away from tomatoes that aren’t necessarily dark bright red! Those other colored tomatoes are delicious. We recommend using them fresh, if possible, since they are so lovely that way. Perhaps make a very simple open faced sandwich out of good crispy bread, goat cheese, and slices of tomato. Or, just skip the bread and cheese, and eat slices of tomatoes with vinegar and salt.
• Sweet peppers
• Kohlrabi
• Cucumbers
• Kale
• Summer squash & zucchini
• Potatoes