Hi Everyone,
Parker Pracjek from Umbrella House Apothecary will be joining us at this week’s distribution. Parker visited B Week members earlier this month and shared free samples of her lovely teas, salves, syrups and extracts. Bring some extra cash if you’d like to pick a few things up or consider ordering directly from the Umbrella House Apothecary website. Parker has kindly offered to deliver items to the distribution site in the future for those who might miss this Thursday’s distribution.
News from Windflower Farm
17th Distribution, Week of September 26th, 2016
This week’s share:
Bunched Baby Lettuce
Kale
Mustard Mix or Koji
Purple Potatoes
Chiles
Sweet Peppers
Sweet Corn (at most sites)
Leeks
Miscellaneous Tomatoes
and Squashes
The bean and corn season has come to a close here, and summer squashes and tomatoes are winding down rapidly. Temperatures have cooled considerably, and foliage has already begun to turn. In the Northeast, the farm season can shut down quickly. A near freeze Monday morning nearly caught us off guard. Next week, look for mixed baby lettuces, arugula, a mustard mix, winter squashes, potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic and the last of our chiles and cilantro (perhaps a last batch of salsa). In the final five weeks of the season, summer crops will give way to the crops of fall and winter: carrots, beets, turnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, leeks, garlic, winter squashes, cold-hardy greens and cabbage – all the makings for wonderful soups, stews and roasts. It’s a season of heavy lifting. Roots are dug from the earth. We might have the aid of a harvester, but generally its function is to loosen the crop from the soil around it or, at best, to pull the crop out of the earth and redeposit it on the soil surface. It’s bend-over work: pull it out or pick it up, put it into a tote or bin, lift the tote onto a wagon or pallet, tuck it into the barn. So, our bend-overs are tired. But it is just a passing part of the season, and soon enough we’ll have filled our barns and coolers and garage.
Fruit shares resumed last week and will continue for a total of six weeks this fall. This week, it’s Macintosh or Goldie apples (if you got one last week, you’ll get the other this week) and Bartlett pears. A variety of other apples and bosc pears and cider are all to come.
A gentle rain fell this morning. It’s been all too rare this season, and this one was light and short lived. But I think it was enough to insure the germination of our most recently seeded cover crops (this one a mix of rye, oats, peas and vetch) and boost along the young greens (arugula, braising mixes, kales, spinach, Swiss chard, tatsoi and choys) that will fill out your final shares of the season.
All the best, Ted and the farm team
