Category Archive

After two nights of frost and 18 weeks of CSA harvests, we have decided to call it a year and wrap things up with today’s box.  Our boxes have been the most abundant ever this year, which as you know can be a bittersweet blessing.  You may be trying to decide whether to rejoice with a meal of all meat and potatoes or cry a soft zucchini tear. Thanks for joining us for a great 2012 season!

IN YOUR BOX THIS WEEK:

1. NEW! Parsnips.
2. NEW! Popcorn
3. NEW! Celeriac (aka Celery Root)
4. NEW! Kuri winter squash
5. Celery
6. Cabbage
7. Beets
8. Carrots
9. Rainbow Chard
10. Eggplant
11. Tomatoes
12. Peppers, sweet and hot
13. Hakurei turnips with leaves (have you tried them sauteed with your scrambled eggs yet?)
14. Beans
15. Onions
16. Thyme (can hang to dry)
17. Mint (can hang to dry)
18. Arugula

Frosty Little Beet Leaves!

In your box:

1. Tomatoes
2. Zucchini/Summer Squash
3. Cucumbers
4. Broccoli
5. Beans
6. Onions
7. Kale
8. Eggplant
9. Peppers — sweets and hots (hots are in their own bag, long skinny cayennes hang to dry easily for winter use)
10. Cabbage
11. Carrots
12. Arugula
13. Turnips with really tasty leaves
14. Cilantro
15. Thyme
16. Rosemary
17. Mint
18. Basil
19. Fennel
20. Dill seeds (you can use these in cooking, or even plant a little windowsill winter herb garden!)
21. LAST OF: Garlic

Special thanks to my mom Carol for spending the week in the garden taking care of everything while my dad enjoyed elk hunting in Colorado.  Welcome back, dad, we’re glad you are home safe and had fun!  Mom, thanks for holding down the fort and picking green beans and zucchini all by yourself!

In your box this week!

1. Tomatoes — thankfully the forcasted heat this week should help the rest of the tomatoes continue to ripen,  You will notice less in your box this week because of cool temps.
2. Broccoli
3. Zucchini and Summer Squash — wow, we are finally past the peak of these guys!  Instead of trying to sneak them into your neighbor’s car, you can once again savor and appreciate them as they wind down for the year.
4. Cucumbers — same as with Zukes above!
5. Onions
6. Rainbow Chard
7. Eggplant
8. Peppers – sweet and hot (everyone got a few hot cayennes — they are long and red and skinny.  They dry really easily, so if you don’t want to use them fresh you can just hang to dry and once dry crush them up into a jar for red pepper flakes.  The other kind of hot peppper, the yellow/orange Hungarian variety, is harder to tell apart from the sweet peppers so I continue to write “hot” for you on their stems.)
9. Beans
10. Cabbage
11. Beets with leaves that you can use just like Chard
12. Carrots
13. Turnips with really tasty leaves
14. Purple Basil
15. Garlic
16. Celery

Tomato slice fresh out of the dehydrator at sunset.

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Walking along the Rum River

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Joe the Dog enjoying a lovely afternoon walk.  In the spring we tap the largest of these Silver Maples lining the river bank to make maple syrup.

Happy Labor Day!  We have labored for you and have this beautiful box ready:

1. NEW! Sage  — use it fresh or easily hang it to dry and once dry crumble into a jar for winter use.
2. Cilantro
3. Basil — store it dry in your fridge or in a vase on your countertop.
4. Mint
5. Cucumbers
6. Zucchini and Summer Squash
7. Broccoli
8. Tomatoes
9. Onions
10. Peppers — mostly sweet, one hot Hungarian Wax
11. Cabbage
12. Kale
13. Beans
14. Beets with leaves
15. Hakurei Turnips with really tasty leaves
16. Eggplant
17. LAST OF:  Sweet Corn

MISSING FROM PHOTO:  SWEET CORN!!

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In your box!

1. Tomatoes
2. Broccoli
3. Zucchini and Summer Squash
4. Cucumbers
5. Onions
6. Rainbow Chard
7. Eggplant
8. Peppers (sweet and hot)
9. Beans
10. Cabbage
11. Beets with greens — more thinnings, just like last week.
12. Carrots — orange and yellow.
13. Sweet Corn
14. Mint
15. Dill

We were out in the cabbage patch and SURPRISE! we found this beautiful cauliflower baby looking for a forever family.

The reason there are less Sungold tomatoes in your box this week than usual.

MISSING FROM PHOTO: Onions and Celery (they were feeling shy and hiding out behind the packing shed)

In your box today:

1. Tomatoes
2. Broccoli
3. Cucumbers
4. Zucchini
5. Cabbage
6. Beans
7. Kale
8. Onions
9. Eggplant
10. Rainbow Carrots
11. Sweet Corn — this is the 2nd picking of the first planting, so slightly lower quality than last week.  We’ll have the first picking (=higher quality) of the second planting ready soon!
12. Beets with Greens — we had to thin out one of our beet plantings, so these are the young beets that we picked to make room for the others to get bigger
13. Dill
14. Cilantro
15. Arugula
16. Celery — remember, this is MN celery, which is smaller and more flavorful
17. Sweet and Hot Peppers — the hot peppers are skinny (long Cayenne, shorter orangish-yellow Hungarian Wax)

In your box:

1. NEW! SWEET CORN!
2. Tomatoes
3. Broccoli
4. Zucchini and Summer Squash
5. Cucumbers
6. Carrots — orange and yellow
7. Onions
8. Rainbow Chard
9. Cabbage
10. Beans
11. Eggplant
12. Arugula
13. Dill (young seeds)
14. Cilantro
15. Peppers — mostly sweet peppers (a variety of colors) and a couple Hungarian Wax hot peppers that say “hot” on the stem (they are small and yellow/orange)
16. Purple Basil

WOW! If you can believe it, our biggest box yet!

1. Tomatoes — look these over, some need to be used very soon and others need to sit on your counter and ripen more.  Try putting a dish towel over the top to keep off fruit flies.
2. Broccoli
3. Beans
4. Kale
5. Cabbage
6. Sweet Peppers
7. Beets with Greens (use leaves like Chard)
8. Cilantro
9. Oxalis
10. Arugula
11. Onions
12. Cucumbers — a mix of regular ones with seeds (Genuine variety) and more or less seedless ones (Diva variety)
13. Zucchini and Summer Squash — use the yellow ones with light green ends fresh, because when frozen they develop an off smell.
14. Eggplant — purple and white
15. LAST OF:  Hakurei Turnips.  These are, we’ll be honest, the runts.  Peel off the outer skin to reveal the crunchy, more tender, center.

In this week’s box:

1. Broccoli
2. Turnips
3. Zucchini and Summer Squash — the ones that are both green and yellow are best eaten fresh. Last year I mixed some in with the others as shredded zucchini to put in the freezer for winter zucchini bread, and when I thawed it out to use it, it smelled terrible!
4. Tomatoes — some are ready to use today, and some need to sit on your counter for a few days to ripen.
5. Onions
6. Beets — with their leaves attached.  Beets are very closely related to Chard, use the leaves just like Chard.
7. Chard
8. Kale
9. Cucumbers
10. Cilantro
11. Basil
12. Eggplant
13. Cabbage
14. Beans
15. Peppers — sweet ones and one hot one each.

We harvested the garlic today, and found this crazy garlic bulb being impaled by quack grass roots.

Another exciting and abundant box this week!

1. NEW! Garlic.  Just harvested, not cured for storage, this is what is called “green garlic.”  Enjoy it fresh in the next week or two.
2. NEW! Celery.  This is NOT your California celery — MN Celery is going to be smaller, darker green, with a stronger taste.  This is just the thinnings where there was two plants growing too close together, so this is on the small side even for MN Celery.  One option is to just cut it up and throw it into a bag in the freezer, ready to add to your soups and hotdishes all winter long.
3. NEW! Cucumbers
4. Beets (with leaves that you can use like Chard)
5. Tomatoes:  Leave these at room temperature to preserve their flavor.  HOWEVER, look them over right away and use the ones with cracks and soft spots first.  These are mostly heirloom varieties, valued for their flavor that sadly comes with the trade-off of thin skin that easily splits and bruises.  Treat these gently like newborn babies and they will reward you with the best fresh salsa and BLTs you’ve ever tasted!  Some of the varieties in your box include: Brandywine, Amish Paste, Wisconsin 55, Beefsteak, Nebraska Wedding, Roma Paste, and the golden cherry-sized Sungolds.  Still to come are Defiant and the ping-pong-sized Tommy Toes.
6. Eggplant
7. Beans
8. Broccoli
9. Hakurei Turnips
10. Onions — some with green leaves and some big ones too.
11. Zucchini and Summer Squash
12. Sweet Peppers
13. Cabbage
14. Kale
15. Chard
16. Carrot
17. Cilantro
18. LAST OF:  FENNEL!  Your bag has some fennel bulbs and a small bunch of the fennel leaves too.