The News from Windflower Farm
What’s in the vegetable share?
- Our Basil or Cilantro from Denison Farm (choice of 1)
- Chard
- Spinach
- Kale
- Beans
- Summer squash/zucchini
- Sweet potatoes
- Broccoli
- Sweet peppers
- Leeks
- Chiles
Your fruit share will be Ginger Gold apples from Yonder Farm.
News from the Farm
Maintaining a healthy and fertile soil, as you probably know, is central to the sustainability of our small farm. Our crops are only as good as the land on which they are grown. If the arugula is pale, it’s likely to be lacking nitrogen. If the beans are prematurely woody, or the skin on our peppers is wrinkled, the soil was probably too dry. We work hard to try to get this right. This time of year, after harvesting leaves many of the farm’s fields bare, we put much of our soil health plan into action. For Nate, that has meant sowing a blend of cover crops. Last week’s rain allowed us to sinkour tillage equipment into the earth to prepare the ground for planting. The cover crop blend he’s sowing this week includes Medium Red clover, Hairy Vetch and cereal rye. He spins it on with the whirlybird or cyclone spreader and then runs over the ground with the cultipacker to improve seed-soil contact. We’re expecting rain this week and are in a hurry to cover crop a few acres beforehand. It’s our intention to have every bed on the farm covered with a soil building “green manure” crop before the season is over.
This week, we will be sending you Windflower Farm sweet potatoes. They’ve been in our curing chamber for the past two weeks, with the humidity set near 100% and the thermostat at 80°. I hope this has been long enough to turn the roots’ starches into sugars, but it’s impossible to know without eating them. They are unwashed and in a paper bag, which is a fine way of storing them. Some additional time in a warm spot in your kitchen wouldn’t hurt. They’ll get sweeter with time. We’ll send more sweet potatoes over the next three weeks, and then it will be the end of October and the CSA season will be over. Unless, of course, you buy a winter share.
Winter CSA Share
For nearly 20 years, we have offered a winter CSA share, but this year’s will be a little different. The drought left us with a significantly smaller fall harvest than usual. We will have just enough of a crop for only one truly bountiful delivery, and we will make it on the Saturday before Thanksgiving (November 22nd). This “Thanksgiving Share” will consist of a wide variety of storage vegetables, including butternut squash, red and yellow onions, leeks, garlic, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, and beets, plus an abundance of fresh greens (spinach, kale, lettuce) from our high tunnels, apples and cider from the Borden Farm, and optional grains, maple products and eggs from neighboring farmers. Click on the following link to learn more about this year’s winter share and to register: Windflower Farm’s 2025 Winter Share. We hope you’ll be able to join us.
Have a great week,
Ted
Central Brooklyn CSA 