The Sunny Side – Week of 8/31/14

In Thursday’s box you will find:

• Leeks
• Potatoes (from Sandhill Family Farms – organic)
• Red and/or Green Lettuce
• White Onions
• Tomatoes
• Curly Endive
• Carrots
• Celery
• Kohlrabi

In Sunday’s box you will find:

• Cucumber
• Summer squash
• Red and/or Green Lettuce
• Red Cippolini Onions
• Tomatoes
• Kale
• Sweet Corn (from Didier Farms)
• Purple and green basil (Sunday)
• Kohlrabi

In the Field

Goodness, is it Labor Day already? August has really flown by. We’re doing the last of our seedling planting today, and completing another round of seeding (radishes, spinach, and the like). At this point in the season, weeds are less of a problem, so our main focus from here on out will be harvesting and beginning to put the fields to be for the fall. As we clear each field of harvest-able vegetables, we will do a rough till of the fields, spread fertility (manure or compost), and seed cover crops like rye and vetch which will smother weeds and fix nitrogen to add to the soil.

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The Sunny Side – Week of 8/24/14

In this week’s box you will find:

• Cucumber
• Summer squash
• Red and/or Green Lettuce
• Red Onions
• Tomatoes
• Kale (Thursday)
• Sweet Corn (from Didier Farms – Thursday – we wanted to make sure to bring this in for Labor Day weekend)
• Potatoes (from Sandhill Family Farms – organic – Sunday this week, Thursday next week)
• Swiss Chard (Sunday)
• Bok Choi (Sunday)
• Baby leeks (Sunday)

In the Field

I talk with my mother often, and the conversation usually turns to what she is doing with this week’s vegetables. She and my dad have been CSA subscribers since we started the farm five years ago, and she is a relentless reader and curator of recipes. She’s also a vegetable nut – I have known her to cook an entire bunch of swiss chard and finish it off by herself over the course of a few hours. I get a lot of my cooking inspiration from her, not to mention a running commentary about each week’s vegetables.

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The Sunny Side – Week of 8/16/14

In this week’s box you will find:

• Cucumber
• Summer squash
• Swiss Chard (Thursday)
• Tomatoes
• Cippolini Onions
• Red and Green Lettuce
• Bok Choi
• Purple or Green Basil (Thursday)
• Baby leeks (Sunday)
• Red Russian Kale (Sunday)
• Purple Basil Plant (Sunday)

In the Field

The image of the tractor is iconic to American agriculture – ask a person to list things you might find on a farm and a tractor will surely be one of the first mentioned. Of course, we all know intellectually that there was a time, before the combustion engine, when draft animals or humans provided the power to till fields, move wagons, and harvest grains. But in the US, we all seem to be three or four generations removed from that historical time period.

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