Week 15, 2012

At this point, it’s anyone’s guess what’s in the box from day to day. There will probably be more cabbage, maybe broccoli or cauliflower, lettuce, kale or chard, peppers, possibly peaches, apples, potatoes, winter squash…. Right now we are harvesting Redcorts, Molly Delicious, Macintosh, Macoun and Honey Crisp apples. I always marvel about how fabulous everything tastes off the farm, right down to the lowly potato and cabbage. Of course we expect a tomato to taste different and better from its supermarket cousin, but I am generally disappointed with the absence of sweet freshness from cabbage, as well. The kids can always tell the difference once I start buying cabbages at the store. I have also been enjoying the second cutting off the broccoli crop. I love those little spears—it’s like eating asparagus!

The butternut looks great this season. We are also harvesting quite a few Sunshine, a Kabocha type, looking a little like a very red-orange pumpkin. Use them as you would any winter squash. Otherwise, I gave you the rundown on squash last week.

Farm Dirt

Wow week 15!!!! (yes, I know it is week 14 for Somerville and City Hall) We promise 16 weeks and sure enough, looks like we’ll make it. The tricky part is figuring out what happens after that. I will let folks know week by week so please be on the look out for the last pickup. A lot can happen (our neighbors already had a light frost), so we don’t want to promise more than we can produce. If we escape frost and potential damaging rains/hurricanes, etc, I would expect to go longer, but one just can’t predict the weather (or we wouldn’t be farming and we’d actually have a steady income 😉

It’s been a pretty solid season: We’ve had awesome corn, lots of tomatoes, blueberries, plenty of apples and peaches, gorgeous lettuce and greens…I hope you feel that way too!

We are still hoping to squeeze in a gleaning day or two. Last year we had a decent turnout nad folks gathered up peppers and extra tomatoes. If you are hoping to benefit from gleaning, it will be short notice, like the day of an expected frost. We also stress that it is for members only. We actually donate a tremendous amount of food, in addition the the uncalimed CAS boxes, so we’d like to restrict any gleaning to our members and what they/he/she can use themselves. Please don’t ask for exceptions, it just makes me feel badly 🙁  
I will post the gleaning times on facebook as soon as we think we’ll have a frost or some other damage…stay tuned.

The farm is abundant with migrating birds, tons of Bluebirds, as always, and some interesting insects. This week Gerry brought back the biggest Praying Mantis I have seen since Texas!

Eat well,            Geneviève Stillman