2024 CSA Newsletter #21
We have made it to the penultimate week of the CSA season. What a ride it has been! Amazingly, I continue to see and experience new things as I near the end of my 20th season of farming. The weather this season was one for the records. Overall, it's been a beautiful fall. It was the warmest Halloween that I can remember. But we are currently in a drought. As we head into late fall/early winter, precipitation is crucial as we prepare for the next growing season. Don't get me wrong, I love this dry, warm weather, but I don't want to see too dry of a fall when we have been getting less snow during the winter months these past couple of years. It's all connected, and we need to take into consideration new growing methods and production techniques to build resiliency when we think about the weather moving forward.
This mild weather has put some of our fall projects into perspective. For a lot of years, these end-of-the-season tasks have been done in some pretty cold and miserable conditions. Some of the cleanup projects are pretty messy, so being able to accomplish them in nice weather has been great! Removing the tomato plants from the hoophouses at the end of the season is one of those messy jobs. We started the multistep process in the hoophouse that we will be moving for the winter. We also continued to prep areas in the greenhouse. After harvesting the turmeric, we began to prep an area that we will use to overwinter hardwood cuttings of black currants, jostaberries, and elderberries. In a couple of weeks, we will prune our perennials and save some of the cuttings that we can sell next season. We also had another high school visit last week. We had students from Ithaca High School who are taking a Sustainable Agriculture elective out for a tour and overview of the Sustainable Farming and Food Systems program at ¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ Cortland. It was another great group of passionate young folks. We had a very engaging conversation about local food systems.
Okay, on to this week's CSA share. The choice will feature the return of Music, the very large heads of garlic. There will also be a small amount of lettuce. It actually started to bolt because of the dry weather we have had. Some beautiful tender kale that we planted in the greenhouse will also be in the share, as well as onions, hot peppers, radishes, fennel, cherry tomatoes, a mix of beefsteak and heirloom tomatoes, boxes of bell/fryer/snacker peppers, jalapeno/habanero salt, the return of cayenne powder, and gochugaru (a Korean cayenne) powder. This week there will also be fresh, aka baby ginger. Fresh ginger should also be stored in the fridge for up to 2 weeks or frozen. We like to freeze it in small chunks that we can grate into stir-fries and smoothies. The yield was way better than the turmeric, so it looks like there may be a small amount next week too.
Have a great week!
-Farmer Todd