CSA For September 4th!

A couple of garden renters were a little
overwhelmed with tomatoes!

I started to type August in the title...just habit I guess!  With the changing of the month, we also see a change in the gardens today.  The Summer Squash looks, well, tired.  The plants are a little broken and battered from all the harvesting, there is not much on them and just a little flowering going on now.  (There may be a collective cheer going on right now!)  However, with cooler days and a little rain, they may rebound!  The Dragons Tongue Beans are also winding down, this is probably the last Tuesday pick for them!

But, as one thing ends another comes on.  The field tomatoes are doing tremendously right now!  Some of the tomatoes today came from a couple of our garden renters: they went away for a week vacation to Banff and came back to an overloaded garden!  They don't can tomatoes, took what they could use and asked us if we'd could make use of any of the ripe ones!  The peppers are coming nicely and we have high hopes for the watermelons and cantaloupe.  The Winter Squash is just beginning, and the late potatoes, some of our most interesting varieties, are getting to be a decent size!  Our onions are a disappointment this year - not enough rain for the sandy soil we planted them in.  We're also not sure the broccoli will be able to recover from the attack of the flea beetles.  Every year it is the same in that some things do well, some things just don't.  It's one of the reasons we plant a wide variety of stuff, and work with growing partners.

We have a wide variety of Winter Squash growing.  You'll probably be able to try things you've never had before!  Today, everybody is getting a Butternut Squash - probably one of the best known kinds.  It's famous for its' sweet, nutty flavor and smooth texture.  Just a reminder:  with Winter Squash you do not eat the skin and the seeds are eaten only when roasted.  Cut the squash down the middle, scoop out the seed packet and then roast or BBQ in the skin, or peel, cut into chunks and boil or steam.  One of Farmers Markets regulars, a very elderly lady, has trouble cutting into Winter Squash, and freely admits that she takes them into her garage and throws them on the concrete floor!  The broken pieces are then washed and prepped!  Any recipe for Winter Squash can be used with any of the varieties; the complexion of the dish will change with the varying aspects of the different squash.  Buttercup and Red Kuri are a little drier, Kabochas and Butternut are a little creamier.  Winter Squash, unlike Summer Squash, keep for literally months if cool, dry and dark.  They continue to ripen and particularly Kabocha improve with curing!

Here's a link for doing Butternut on the BBQ!  Here's one of our favorites:  Curried Butternut and Apple Soup - we served it at the farm's Open House last year!  Butternut, really any of the Winter Squash, can be used in any recipe for pumpkin pie, muffins or cookies!  We just bake a big one, mash it up as a side dish that night with dinner, and use the rest directly substituted into a muffin or loaf recipe.  Or how about healthy baked Butternut Chips?

So, for the FULL SHARES:  4 lbs. Sangria Red potatoes, 4 lbs. Yukon Gold potatoes, cucumbers including a Lemon Ball, zucchini, lg. Butternut squash, green pepper, 7 cobs corn, 1 lb.  Dragon's Tongue beans, tomatoes, onions.

PART SHARES:  3 lbs. Sangria Red potatoes, 3 lbs. Yukon Gold potatoes, cucumber, zucchini, med. Butternut squash, 5 cobs corn, 1 lb. Dragon's Tongue beans, tomatoes.

SINGLE SHARES:  2 lbs. Sangria Red potatoes, 2 lbs. Yukon Gold potatoes, cucumber, zucchini, small Butternut squash, 3 cobs corn, 1 lb. Dragons Tongue beans, tomatoes.