This week you’ll find in your share:
Winter Squash* (Butternut!)
Tomatoes
Peppers
Cucumbers
Golden Beets*
Radishes (remember your radish leaf pesto recipe from this spring)
Summer Squash OR Celery
Asian Greens OR Arugula
Next week you might find in your share:
• Tomatoes
• Beets
• New Zealand Spinach (a cooking green)
• Potatoes
• Peppers
• Garlic
• Winter Squash?
From Your Farmers…
Fall reveals its bounty. Roots, like beets and radishes, are coming around, winter squash delivers, and tender leaves come to their prime while summer flavors ripen on.
This will be the last week of summer squash, zucchini, and cucumbers. Our plants gave all they had, and in the interest of building our soil, we’ve retired these plants and will be planting our cover crops soon.
*Beets- we’re really excited about the success of these cylindrical yellow beets. They’re sweet, and the greens held up pretty well. To make both the root and the leaf last, cut the greens off right away. The greens are a bit bug bitten. Some mind, some don’t. We’ll leave it up to you.
*Though we lost many of our fall greens to the ants, our last beds of winter squash was bountiful. Two 60 foot rows gave us over 450 pounds of butternuts. Get ready to see lots of it show up in the shares. Plan to keep them around all winter, and know that winter squash in general sweetens as it ages.
Our most recent butternuts are large, firm, and the deep tan that is a sure sign of sweetness. Funny thing about butternuts- while most veggies and fruits tend to taste better small, a big butternut is a sign of health. Larger butternuts are sweeter and will store longer. Keep this in mind as we send it your way. The butternuts you are receiving this week are from our first harvest, about four weeks ago. Use the small ones first. I still have a big butternut from last year on the counter, in perfect shape.
Week A members: Something I hadn’t really thought about suggesting until last week: We take great care in seeing that your food arrives fresh and is well packed to avoid getting smashed or toppled. Even so, produce in moving bags shifts, weight moves, things get bumped, maybe even as you get out of the car or walk into the house. So, we suggest unpacking and taking a thorough look through your share soon after picking up, prior to putting it away. That way things like potatoes don’t go in the fridge. Check to make sure no tomatoes split or smashed. If you find such a thing happened, you’ll know to use that item before it goes bad, and you won’t miss out on any of the goods.
We understand that bi-weekly members only get half of the recipes and newsletters, and to avoid repetition, we change things up every week. If you are a bi-weekly member and are seeking more recipe ideas or farm news, remember to check out our website at seedsofhopefarm.org. If you’re not an internet person, just let us know and we’d happily drop the previous week’s newsletter into your share.
Last week we lost nearly all of our broccoli, cabbage, and kale to ants. We are still fighting for the collards. Who knows, from there they could move on to the mustard greens and turnips. We just don’t know. We will keep our sugared borax traps out, and try a few other tricks as well.
We’re really sad about the shortage of greens that is undoubtedly coming, as fall is their prime time. There’s not much like a frost sweetened kale or cabbage. This isn’t to say we won’t have any, just lesser amounts and less often.
Thank you for returning the cherry tomato boxes. Please keep returning them with your share bags.
Food For Thought
Winter squash is great because it can be used in so many ways. It’s just one more perk of a storage crop. Butternut can be great in a tomato dish, baked with garlic, made into soup, baby food, curried, bisqued and topped with flash fried sage, cubed, steamed and tossed with greens over rice. The list goes on. The seeds are also great toasted. Butternut is so similar to a sweet potato; it can be used as a substitute.
This Week’s Recipe comes from the farm kitchen
This week we’ll keep it simple. Preheat oven at 400. Mince some garlic. A couple cloves will do. Cut squash in half. Remove seeds and stringy stuff. Set aside. Heavily coat inside and outside of squash with oil. Lay flesh side down on a baking sheet. Add some water to baking sheet. (this keeps the squash moist in the oven.) Bake for about an hour, or until desired softness is achieved. I like some of the skin to begin to blacken. Remove. Salt. Eat.
For a project while the squash is cooking, remove the stringy stuff from the seeds. Marinate them in a salty sauce until squash is removed from oven, toss seeds in oil, dust with curry powder, and bake for 20 minutes or until crispy. This is a great, easy after dinner treat.
Upcoming Events:
The chicken coop build at Bel-Ridge scheduled for October 12 has been postponed. This will likely be rescheduled in November
CAASTLC's Seeds of Hope Farm 