CSA Newsletter – Week 13 – September 7, 2016

WHAT’S IN THE BOX:
carrots
beets or chard
cabbage or broccoli
potatoes
rutabaga
onions
garlic
Italian Eggplant
corn
an assortment of squash
basil or cilantro
sweet peppers
red tomatoes
cauliflower (most of you)

rutabaga

CROP DETAIL:
Rutabaga: It is a root crop in the broccoli family. It is similar to turnips, but not as spicy. Rather it has an earthiness to it like beets. The flavor is subtle, but nice. No matter how you cook it, you’ll want to peel it. The outer skin is a little tough. It cooks much like a potato. Cut into chunks and add to soup, or add it to a batch of mashed potatoes.
Potatoes: The variety is called Desiree. It has creamy yellow flesh and makes the perfect mashed potato.
Cauliflower: Most of you got some today so the rest of you should get it next week. We were surprised by the earliness and size of this cauliflower. It was intended for fall harvest. Oh well! Try the recipe for roasted sriracha cauliflower bites with peanut dipping sauce courtesy of Thug Kitchen. I retyped it in a family friendly version! Cauliflower potato soup is also a winner.
Tomatoes: The rainy weather has taken its toll on the tomatoes. We have a lot, they just aren’t very pretty.
Peppers: We only grow sweet peppers for the CSA, so no matter the color or size, they are all sweet. We are trialing about 6 varieties of tiny, colored peppers. It can be very challenging to get colored peppers around here, as usually our summers are cool and/or wet. So far they seem prolific and tasty, so hopefully we’ll grow more next year.

WHAT’S GOING ON IN THE FIELDS
I was all resigned to rain and clouds for the rest of the summer, but lo and behold the forecast calls for a string of 80 degree days next week. Hurray! We need to haul in the rest of the onions, harvest the dry beans, dig all the potatoes, plant the garlic, and start getting some cover crop down. That’s a lot to tackle in a short window of time, esp. when we have all of our regular duties to attend to. We did get over half the onions into the greenhouses already.