(CSA Newsletter: Summer Week 14)
Meet this week’s vegetables:
(* indicates items included in this week’s Linfield student mini-CSA.)
In two previous newsletters, I mentioned our ‘To-do-before-Nov. 1’ list. Well, after this weekend, the careful pre-rain planning we did has become moot. As you all know, the fall rains arrived this week, seemingly for good this season. I imagine (& hope) that we’ll have another dry spell this October, but we can no longer count on it.
After the rains began, we heard many well-intentioned comments, such as ‘What’s the big deal? This is Oregon after all.’ True enough, but living in Oregon also means that we have summer droughts and the first big real onset of the rainy season is worth noting. We think so, anyway.
The good news on the farm is that we got enough of our ‘before-Nov. 1’ list done before the rain hit that we’re feeling just fine right now. Yes, we did have a Saturday ‘blitz’ of throwing tarps over firewood (moving it to the shed was on the list), moving the Allis cultivator into the hot house, and throwing other things under cover — but the onions and the winter squash were already tucked away dry for the winter, and that’s makes it all ok for us.
We also realize that we cannot change the weather. We plan and prepare for every possible outcome, but in the end what we want has little affect on what happens. So, we certainly could have used another few weeks without mud, but we have contingency plans for almost everything on the ‘before-Nov. 1’ list.
And, I must admit, it’s hard for us to get upset about a turn in the weather that provides us rest. Rain’s arrival changes everything. It’s here, so the urgency of the ‘before-Nov. 1’ list is ended. We’ll finish projects as we can, but on days when it rains hard, we can really rest for the first time in months. We no longer have to move irrigation. We can’t weed. We can’t plant. And, because we’re caught up on these things, that feels so good.
Now that our fieldwork season has more or less ended for the year, we’re also taking more time to complete our harvests. Today, Monday, we harvested over half of the CSA items for Tuesday. We’ll continue stretching the CSA harvest over two days for the rest of the season, fitting our work around rain showers and taking our time with each item. Having time feels necessary now too, since slippery fields and rain storms slow everything down. Trying to rush out there would be frustrating and self-defeating.
We also built our first fire of the season in the woodstove. And made soup (the same potato leek soup recipe included here). And read. For us, the quieting of the season is welcome.
And, to mirror the change in weather, this week’s share represents a further shift towards fall items. We’re including potatoes and leeks for the first time as well as another cooking green: mustards. In our experience, some of these fall flavors may likely challenge some folks new to a seasonal diet. Cooking greens especially are rare in the standard American diet, but in the fall they are abundant and packed with nutrition and flavor. We hope that everyone is up to the challenge as we ease away from summer fruits (still lingering for a few more weeks) and towards the fall greens and roots.
As always, we’ll continue to include servings suggestions and recipes that have become part of our seasonal cooking routine, but we’d love to here from you too. What are you cooking each week? How do you incorporate cooking greens into your meals? Recipes are welcome, but even more useful would be more generalized approaches or serving suggestions that can be easily modified from week to week with different greens or vegetables. If you have ideas as the season progresses, please email us or drop them by the pick-up site.
We hope that you too enjoy the change in the weather! And, enjoy the vegetables!
Your farmers,
Casey & Katie Kulla
Oakhill Organics
