CSA for August 24, 2010

Well, another lousy weather day for CSA. What is up with that? Heavy rain Monday and into early Tuesday morning, then high winds with a real cold bite for most of the day Tuesday! It's hard to pick the pole beans when the trellising is swinging back and forth by about a foot! You reach for a nice, plump romano bean and suddenly it's gone! I spent most of the day dressed like it was November - three layers and a hood! I even had the notion to dig out my beloved fingerless gloves from winter storage!

But, nonetheless, we got it done. Had some nice volunteer help from Carrie, a lovely young lady we met early in the summer. Someone who's interested in local food and fresh food and contacted us by email to volunteer. She was interested in learning a bit about what we do and how we do it. Coming through Brandon after finishing her summer job at a camp in Clear Lake, she dropped by for a couple of hours and helped picked cucumbers and clean up winter squash. Thanks, Carrie!

For this CSA, Farmer Man made me share the garlic. We dug all our fall-planted garlic about a week ago, and have had it spread out on a table - in the sun, weather permitting. It's cured quite nicely and has done quite well for us this year. We love our garlic, so I must admit I am always unwilling to part with it! If you've only ever had store bought garlic, this may have a bit more kick than you are used to!!

We have a late seeding of lettuce just coming along. The greens are very young still and we didn't get a big harvest, but the greens are lovely! Hopefully, we'll get a better harvest next week. I've got some borage flowering nicely, and hope to add some flowers to the mesclun mix next week for some nice blue colour and a lovely, cucumber flavour! Not that we don't have enough cucumbers..........although the rains have encouraged some of the cukes to get a bit fat and round, which means they become pig food, because they just look to weird to sell or put into the CSA shares.

The winter squash are coming in very well this year. Don't forget that winter squash store quite well - keep them someplace cool, dry and dark and they can be good for months. The flesh also freezes very well! The Kabocha's are fabulous in recipes for pumpkin desserts like pies, cookies and breads. Cook the Kabocha by microwaving or baking, scrap the flesh out, measure the amount you'd need for, say, pumpkin pie, and freeze in freezer bags or containers! Ready to bake a pie this winter!

So, for the FULL SHARES: 8 lbs. 'Almira' white potatoes, large bag Romano green and yellow beans, a bunch of carrots, a mix of yellow cooking, Spanish white and red onions, small bag of mesclun mix, a couple of green peppers, cucumbers, head of garlic, an acorn winter squash, a delicata (or sweet potato) winter squash, a buttercup winter squash and an orange Kabocha winter squash.

For the PART SHARES: Small bag of either Sangria red, Almira white or Yukon Gold potatoes, large bag of 'Kentucky Blue' pole beans, a bunch of carrots, yellow and Spanish onions, small bag of mesclun mix, green pepper, cucumbers, head of garlic, an Acorn winter squash and a buttercup winter squash.