Thursday, August 6, 2015

CSA Week 8 Newsletter

Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm and Welcome to Week 8.  Hopefully everyone is enjoying their boxes.  Week 8 is NOT an egg week.

Haven’t the last few days been beautiful?  Warm and sunny during the day and cool at night for good sleep!  It is almost as if you can already feel fall in the air.  The days are getting shorter, the golden rod is blooming, the shadows are getting longer and now the nights are getting cooler.  We were 49 at the farm this morning!  That is cool.  Too cool to ripen our tomatoes!

Speaking of tomatoes.  Our sungolds are really going strong now.  And they are still as sweet as ever.  We have started harvesting some slicing tomatoes and our heirlooms are starting to ripen as well.  We have even been eating BLT’s here on farm!!!  Farmer Don does harvest some of the larger tomatoes a bit under ripe.  This is to prevent them from cracking on the vine.  If your tomatoes seem a bit under ripe, please allow them to sit on your kitchen counter for a few days.

As long as we are talking tomatoes.  Is anyone in the mood to make some sauce?  We have bulk paste/roma tomatoes for sale.  They are from a neighbor’s farm and are certified organic.  We are offering 25 pound boxes for $30.  They can be ordered on our CSA buying club or picked up at market this weekend.  If you plan to pick up at market, please email us so we can reserve a box for you.

New this week are apples.  These are apples from our own apple trees.  Please note, these apples are from trees which have not been sprayed with anything for at least 40 years.  For this reason, these apples are not perfect.  We like to call them “ugly apples” and you may need to cut out some scabby or wormy areas.  But, never fear, they really, really taste good!  If you are looking for a perfect apple, you may want to pass on these.  We should be buying in some no-spray or low spray apples later in the season, which will be more perfect.

For all our okra fans. Our okra is looking good and about to flower, so we anticipate to be adding okra to our availability in the next week or so.  We are also starting to harvest our second planting of Asian greens, with tatsoi being the first to become available.  Our salad greens are looking really good and we have added a spicy salad mix to the availability.  Spicy salad mix is our standard salad mix with mustard greens added for a bit of a bite.  We will begin harvesting our winter squash soon.  Spaghetti squash should be the first to appear on the availability list, as it does not need to be cured.  The other winter squash will spend a bit of time curing in one of greenhouses and then will become available.

A quick reminder.  Ordering for the CSA starts at 6 pm on Thursdays and ends at 6 pm on Sundays.  If you do not order, you will still get a farmer’s choice box of veggies.  Farmer’s choice boxes are custom packed by Farmer Don.  Sometimes Farmer’s choice boxes will feature items which either are sold out or not available on our choice list.  Farmer Don works hard to estimate his harvest almost a week in advance.  For this reason he tends to err on the side of caution and underestimate what he thinks will be ready for harvest.  If harvest is greater than predicted, these items will appear in the Farmer’s choice box.  If you try to select your items late on Sunday and find availability very limited, you may want to gamble on a farmer’s choice box that week.

Farmer Don will continue to attend 2 markets this weekend.  He will be at the Back Mountain Memorial Library market on Saturday.  This market is now on the grounds of the Dallas elementary school.  On Sunday he will be at the Mountain Top market.  This market is held on the grounds of the Crestwood High School.  Please stop by and say hello!

Since the newsletter is already late getting out, I won’t get too wordy and will end here.  Have a great week!