CSA Newsletter #12
Happy Fall Semester, folks and welcome to those who have joined us for the fall CSA season! And to all of you with the kiddos starting school or college, best of luck to you all. Both of my kids will be in school this fall and it blew me away when I stopped and realized that. I'm not entirely sure when that happened.
The start of fall semester definitely gives me renewed energy. Not only for working with the farm interns but the other courses I teach, as well. Alison has returned for her third and final farming internship and I have newcomer, Jamie at the farm for the first time. I'm looking forward to working with these two for the remainder of the season. I'm equally excited for the other courses that I'm teaching this semester. I get the chance to work with two former farm interns, Julia and Zach, as they work on their Capstone Projects. I'll also be down at Coltivare teaching our Food Preservation course, which is always awesome.
Last week on the farm, I began to really start to think about the priorities of tasks/projects/etc. going into the fall. I start coming up with a list of all the things that need to happen before the end of the season and then I prioritize them a needs or wants. It's pretty fluid based on the weather. We got through one of the easiest by starting to prune the lower leaves and empty fruit clusters of the tomato plants. This is done to create more airflow for the plants. Growing tomatoes under cover definitely has its disease prevention benefits but they'll still show symptoms of disease. The airflow helps to mitigate fungal growth. We'll continue to do this as we harvest up the plants. The next big tomato job is to "top" the plants. This is when we cut off the growing point so the plant will put it's remaining energy in ripening any remaining fruit. It will happen with the heirloom tomatoes sooner than later but the cherry/beefsteak/sauce tomatoes seem to just be getting started.
Speaking of tomatoes.... they will be highlighting this week's CSA share. I think the heirlooms are still peaking. What I've noticed is that there's a pretty good mix of ripening variation among the varieties. Some are slowing down, while others are just starting to pick up. The cherry tomatoes seem to ripening by the hour. I think that I forgot to mention last week about some of the mixed pints with the green tomato. They are a variety called and are meant to stay firm. There will be plenty of beefsteaks and the sauce tomatoes are starting to really pick up. The hot peppers are still going strong. This week, the roulettes have exploded, as well as the mad hatters. This week's new pepper product is a paprika. There will be more cayenne powder next week. If you took some and used it, let me know what you think. If you took some and haven't used it yet, let me tell you that a little goes a long way! The paprika has a much sweeter taste but still packs a little heat. Okra, shishito peppers, basil and rainbow chard round out this week's share.
Have a great week!
-Farmer Todd