CSA Harvest #19~ 7 to go!

Good day! How can it be that 19 weeks have gone by already? And really what we're wondering is how can there be 7 weeks left? :) no, no it's true time does fly when you are having fun and that's what we like to do down here at Big Lick Farm! While we've been having fun we also have been enjoying our fall weather. I love how the light changes at this time of year, still sunny but softer not intense like at summer. The soft light of fall allows us to hang up our huge sombreros and trade them for ball caps which allow for much better visibility. We are watching clouds of Canadian Geese as they migrate south in preparation for winter. Also we watch as the first dry leaves of fall litter the fields. At this time of year a definite perk of being a farmer is being able to be outside to witness the splendor of fall.

This year we have noticed so much more life on the farm in terms of beneficial insects and small, colorful tree frogs. Praying mantises are everywhere we turn. Lingering in the strawberry plants catching grasshoppers, mating in the winter squash patch and hanging out on the huge sunflowers waiting for pollinators to come. Also the tree frogs, leaping widely into the riot of vegetable growth. We are convinced the increase of life at the farm is in response to the way we are growing food.. in a way that promote life and diversity! Unfortunately we do need to go into areas and mow occasionally and till. The increase of animal life makes it a slow process as we mow and till. Baby steps taken to be sure as many of the critters are out of the way as possible. Several times we will see a praying mantis come ambling out of the greenery we are in the process of mowing and we will stop the machines and carry the mantis or tree frog to safety. Call us softies but the frogs and mantises do such a fine job of pest control they are treated with much respect.

This Thursday we are anticipating 42 4th grade students from Glide to visit the farm. The students will be broken into groups and get hands on experience in harvesting, composting, salsa making and helping to plant more cover crop seed as well as learning about organic farming methods. Thank you to our CSA member and Glide 4th grade teacher Julie Vandehey for making this happen! We will post photos next week.


For now we will get to the recipes as we still need to prepare for the arrival of kids to the farm!

Enjoy!!

Suzie, Asinete, M.A., Violet and Sally


Harvest This Week Includes:

Luscious Sweet Corn (yay it's back!! our last planting.. enjoy!)

Summer Crisp Lettuce

Heirloom Tomatoes

Sweet Yellow Onion

Tromboncini Squash

Cucumber

Carrots

Strawberries

Raspberries (on rotation)


We know you are all familiar with the above crops for this week's harvest so enjoy!

Also thank you to those of you who have forwarded recipes on how to prepare kale. We were happy to hear that many of you are loving the kale! We will post those forwarded recipes in the upcoming weeks when kale becomes a more frequent part of your CSA share (after we have our first frost). Last year we had our first frost October 7th... that would be this Thursday. We are hoping the first frost will hold off for a bit longer this year since we had such a cold, wet spring.