This summer has been perfect, hasn’t it? This is how I remember summers as a kid. Glowing long days that make for weeks that feel like months – in a good way. A great way.

It it was a great week on the farm, too. We have three kickass folks staying with us. (Four, actually, now that Bucket the cat has returned from his three day and night sabbatical in the woods., undevoured and glad to be back.)

The high tunnel project is moving along briskly with indispensable direction and support from Patriarch Jim and Neighbor Dave.

Cold came flirting around, bottoming out around 38 degrees. We’re  working on the woodpile while thinking about frost protection and our winter flightpath through the South.

Autumn’s approach inspires a lot of such forward thinking (made possible by a seasonal shift to a schedule less hectic, with luxury of looking ahead further than the next hour and day); we:

• picked apples and made juice, picked grapes at The Neighbors’, and made jelly with the grapes and the apple juice.
• battled the Tomato Tsunami by turning mountains of slightly damaged tomatoes into BBQ sauce.
• scored more bales of spoiled hay for next year’s composting mulch.

The tomatoes are slowing down now, and soon will go the way of the cucumbers and zucchini. We skipped salad mix this week since you’re getting a whole cabbage, but expect it the next three weeks – the leaves have been under assault by an army of flea beetles, but their damage is cosmetic and the bug boom seems to be ebbing.  Squash are ’bout ripe, pumpkins are building halloween hype, and we have all the radishes in the world (we may have slightly overcompensated for Spring’s Great Radish Kill).

It’s been beautiful, reaffirming that This has been the right choice for us to have made. Again have to express gratitude- to our families, friends, neighbors, WWOOFers, market regulars, and to YOU. Thanks for sharing the journey.

Now eat yer vegetables.

CSA Box 15

• Napa cabbage – so good and crunchy. Build a delicious salad, or try your hand at Kim chi. Can also be sautéed – or sliced lengthwise, marinated, and grilled!
• Broccoli – it’s been a pretty good broccoli year! First ever for us.
• Daikon Radish – the big long white roots. Spicy. Some people grate them and squeeze the juice out make them milder, then combine them with tomatoes and salt as a salad. They are popular in Kim chi, in site fry, or sliced up in a salad. Store in the fridge.Recipe to try: https://www.google.com/search?q=radish+carrot+vietanmese+pickleEggplant – if you still have zucchini make ratatouille with the parsley. Or do eggplant in a tomato sauce (it mellows the acid of the maters). If you sauté if, steam the eggplant first so it absorbs less oil – unless you prefer it oily!
• Peppers
• Tomatoes – if you were a member last year you understand why the harvest this year has us feeling exuberant. Too many tomatoes is a problem we are lucky to have! (This is the year I truly fell in love with tomatoes, I think. So many ways they are great, but my favorite simply eaten raw like an apple.)
  
• Carrots
• Delicata squash – the tastiest squash, sweet potatoes when. Slice it open, scoop out the seeds and roast it … And the seeds. Because these are also the tastiest squash or pumpkin seeds!
• Parsley – pair with the tomatoes, or dry it if you don’t have a use just yet – it dries well if you hang it upside down in a dark ventilated spot.

Hey lookit, pictures from this week on the Farm: